Cannot boot into windows after adding second drive - recover activation key

Question

I added an SSD to the system to expand its storage. Both original and new disk are M.2. System is running Windows 11

The new disk is brand new and needed to be initialized. I wasn't sure what to choose, so I chose GPT as the primary disk.

I created a new partition and started using the new disk. All was good on the first day I was using it.

The day after, I tried to boot, but the system never reaches the login screen. It gets stuck on a black screen with a rolling white circle at the bottom. I looked online for a solution and created a bootable drive. From the recovery mode I went into the command prompt and saw that the new disk was now disk C and the old disk moved to disk D (it was not like that the day before).

The system now won't boot even if I remove the new disk.

I am almost to the point to re-install windows, but I am worried I do not have a product key, and since I can not enter windows, I cannot verify that the system is properly activated and linked to my windows account.

What should I do?

The system is a HP Z1 Entry Tower G5. Hope I gave enough info to help troubleshooting.

I am running dual boot with Linux and Linux still runs just fine (but no partition of the new disk got allocated to it yet). I do not mind re-installing Windows, even if I lose my files, but it would be rather annoying if the Linux install gets affected

While I want to be sure I will be able to re-activate Windows after a clean install, I tried to follow the other instructions from the following links (start-up recovery, adding letter to EFI partition and manually changing volume and partitions letters):

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/stuck-on-preparing-automatic-repair-loop/4fc60881-ffd7-41e2-90bf-7ea4767f729d

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000124331/how-to-repair-the-efi-bootloader-on-a-gpt-hdd-for-windows-7-8-8-1-and-10-on-your-dell-pc#instructions

https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/windows-10-wont-boot-with-second-hard-drive.html

Answer 1

Hello,

Boot to a CMD prompt.

Run Diskpart list disk

Report back output.

Run Diskpart list vol

Report back output.

Exit Diskpart

Run bcdedit /Enum

Report back output ( this is a list of the bootloader information)

How old is the system?

Most newer systems have the OEM product key inserted into the registry.

This can be retrieved by running "wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey"

Try running this from the cmd prompt. I don't recall if WMI is available in that scenario.

What edition are you running?

Drive lettering should not be the issue, drive lettering is contained without the OS that is booting.

Boot order of the drives is dependent on the BIOS enumeration however so adding the new SSD may have placed it earlier in the boot order