M.2 boot issues

[JMD4210]

I am building a new pc and when I moved my main m.2 with windows to my new motherboard (z690) it will not read it as a bootable drive but when I put it back in my old motherboard (z390) it works completely fine. I put a new install of windows onto a new SSD and my new pc works completely fine. When I go into the bios of the z690 it reads the correct m.2 just does not see it as a bootable drive.  Is there a way to fix the windows boot on my main m.2 or is there a setting that I have to change? I do not want to have to wipe it.

[rileyakirk]

Since the hardware differs you cannot boot the old drive in the new motherboard. You'll most likely want to use a migration tool to move your data over.

[RONOTHAN##]

Do you have any other drives in your Z390 system? Windows has this weird glitch with the installer where it will sometimes put the EFI partition (what a computer detects as bootable) on a different drive than where Windows will be installed. If that is the case, you'd have to move the EFI partition over to the SSD, which isn't too difficult but does involve command line magic. 

 

You can check by opening up disk management and looking for what drive the EFI partition is on. If it's on the SSD, then I don't really know what to tell you. If it's on a different drive, then you can either move both drives over or move the EFI partition to the primary SSD. If there is no EFI partion, then your Windows install might be MBR instead of GPT, which most Z690 boards don't really like. Make sure CSM is enabled on the Z690 board before you try it again, and if that doesn't work, try converting the disk from MBR to GPT. There are a lot of guides for how to do that, but looking on this forum a lot of people have issues with it, so make sure you have a good backup before you try this. 

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, rileyakirk said:

Since the hardware differs you cannot boot the old drive in the new motherboard. You'll most likely want to use a migration tool to move your data over.

Not really. Windows is actually pretty good about detecting new hardware and just booting, given that there aren't any huge driver incompatibilities. I've gone from AMD systems to Intel systems and back again with no issues from the drive. It will just say "Getting devices ready" and boot up just fine. 

 

I had one drive that started off in a 7th gen Intel system, moved to an 11th gen laptop, went back to that 7th gen machine, went to a 2nd gen Ryzen machine for a little bit, then went into a Macbook Air with an adapter. Windows was never reinstalled, and it just said "Getting devices ready" every time. Even in the Macbook, it booted right into Windows and all my programs worked just fine.

[rileyakirk]

14 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Not really. Windows is actually pretty good about detecting new hardware and just booting, given that there aren't any huge driver incompatibilities. I've gone from AMD systems to Intel systems and back again with no issues from the drive. It will just say "Getting devices ready" and boot up just fine. 

 

I had one drive that started off in a 7th gen Intel system, moved to an 11th gen laptop, went back to that 7th gen machine, went to a 2nd gen Ryzen machine for a little bit, then went into a Macbook Air with an adapter. Windows was never reinstalled, and it just said "Getting devices ready" every time. Even in the Macbook, it booted right into Windows and all my programs worked just fine.

I've had this break Windows before. Generally its safer to just reinstall and move data over if necessary, but that's just my preference. It's a pain dealing with Windows slapping the bootloader wherever it pleases.

[RONOTHAN##]

7 minutes ago, rileyakirk said:

I've had this break Windows before. Generally its safer to just reinstall and move data over if necessary, but that's just my preference. It's a pain dealing with Windows slapping the bootloader wherever it pleases.

Yeah, it's usually safer to reinstall, I have seen it break, but the breaks really aren't as common as you might think. It's at least worth taking a try at it, especially if you don't want to go through the hassle of setting up a Windows install.