Windows won't boot without SSD

[heinbrink]

Today i got my pc dusted off and wanted to use it again. 

It is still on windows 10 so i wanted to upgrade to windows 11 to get all the newer functions.

But i cant upgrade my pc because my drives are not UEFI. When i wanted to convert them i got dragged into a big hole of why that wouldn't work.

The point is a few years ago when i upgraded the storage in my pc with an M.2 drive i moved the OS from my original SSD to my M.2.

What didn't move with the OS was the reserved partition on my SSD. So now when i want to boot my system i can only boot to the SSD, and not to the M.2.

I already tried lots of things, mainly trying to repair the boot manager with this manual: https://woshub.com/how-to-rebuild-bcd-file-in-windows-10/#h2_4

That didn't work and now i am a bit hopeless. In the picture you can see my disk manager and how everything is setup.

I hope some of you can help.

[Vishera]

The problem is that the bootloader remained on the older drive - Which could have been avoided if you were to use a sector by sector clone of the entire disk.

 

Before you do anything, It's recommended to backup your drives. 

 

Here is what i would do (If you don't think you can do it, then it's best you don't):

Shrink the OS partition (on the M.2 NVME) and move it as close as possible to the 500mb partition on the same drive - make sure there is no empty space between the partitions and that the OS partition is leftwards of the 500mb partition.

Do a sector by sector clone in Macrium Reflect with only the 50mb (bootloader) partition on the SSD being checked as source and the empty space on the M.2 as the destination.

Then expand the OS partition on the M.2 NVME so that there is no free space  between the 50mb boot loader partition and the OS partition (both should be on on the M.2 NVME now)

 

At this point it should work so give it a test,

 

If the boot loader works but has issues you can use Easy BCD to add operating systems to the boot loader and change values as needed.

[Thomas53]

What I would do.

Backup anything you want to keep onto a separate disk. And disconnect it from the computer .

Remove one of the two drives, I recommend the smallest or fastest of the two. Windows, doesn't really need a lot of space to be usable.

Also, this makes it easier for Windows to know where it's supposed to go. It's not hard for it to get confused.

Install Windows.

Turn computer OFF.

Reattach the second drive and then after rebooting, reformat it to wipe anything remaining on the drive and then you can do what you want.

[heinbrink]

16 hours ago, Vishera said:

The problem is that the bootloader remained on the older drive - Which could have been avoided if you were to use a sector by sector clone of the entire disk.

 

Before you do anything, It's recommended to backup your drives. 

 

Here is what i would do (If you don't think you can do it, then it's best you don't):

Shrink the OS partition (on the M.2 NVME) and move it as close as possible to the 500mb partition on the same drive - make sure there is no empty space between the partitions and that the OS partition is leftwards of the 500mb partition.

Do a sector by sector clone in Macrium Reflect with only the 50mb (bootloader) partition on the SSD being checked as source and the empty space on the M.2 as the destination.

Then expand the OS partition on the M.2 NVME so that there is no free space  between the 50mb boot loader partition and the OS partition (both should be on on the M.2 NVME now)

 

At this point it should work so give it a test,

 

If the boot loader works but has issues you can use Easy BCD to add operating systems to the boot loader and change values as needed.

What exactly do you mean by "make sure there's no empty space between the partitions"?

[heinbrink]

On 7/1/2025 at 12:42 AM, Thomas53 said:

What I would do.

Backup anything you want to keep onto a separate disk. And disconnect it from the computer .

Remove one of the two drives, I recommend the smallest or fastest of the two. Windows, doesn't really need a lot of space to be usable.

Also, this makes it easier for Windows to know where it's supposed to go. It's not hard for it to get confused.

Install Windows.

Turn computer OFF.

Reattach the second drive and then after rebooting, reformat it to wipe anything remaining on the drive and then you can do what you want.

I can not reformat the drive on which the mentioned system reserved partition is. So this wouldn't be an option.

[Thomas53]

Download GParted, install it on a USB stick and use it. There are other such tools out there but, I'm mostly familiar with this tool.