Share via

Use bootloader from a SATA disk to boot Windows installation on a NVME disk

Anonymous
2018-09-05T12:01:23+00:00

I want to move my Windows 10 installation to a new NVME disk (disk 2). I have cloned the original SATA disk (disk 1) to the NVME disk. Unfortunately I have an older motherboard (ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP) that does not support booting the NVME drive directly.

Both disks are using a MBR, have a 'system reserved' partition and a partition holding the OS. If I understand correctly, the system reserved partition contains the Windows bootloader. Windows seems to be handling the NVME drive just fine. Is it possible use the bootloader and the 'system reserved' partition from disk 1 and have it start the OS from disk 2?

I have tried adding the OS on disk 2 as an alternative boot entry using EasyBCD. This restulted in the following BCD configuration:

Windows Boot Manager


identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}

device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume3

description             Windows Boot Manager

locale                  nl-NL

inherit                 {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}

default                 {868eec41-5821-11e8-a835-e2488662881a}

resumeobject            {868eec40-5821-11e8-a835-e2488662881a}

displayorder            {868eec41-5821-11e8-a835-e2488662881a}

                        {44fda4da-5819-11e8-a499-c54e35723be3}

toolsdisplayorder       {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}

timeout                 30

Windows Boot Loader


identifier              {868eec41-5821-11e8-a835-e2488662881a}

device                  partition=C:

path                    \WINDOWS\system32\winload.exe

description             Windows 10

locale                  nl-NL

inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}

recoverysequence        {44fda4d8-5819-11e8-a499-c54e35723be3}

displaymessageoverride  StartupRepair

recoveryenabled         Yes

allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075

osdevice                partition=C:

systemroot              \WINDOWS

resumeobject            {868eec40-5821-11e8-a835-e2488662881a}

nx                      OptIn

bootmenupolicy          Standard

hypervisorlaunchtype    Auto

Windows Boot Loader


identifier              {44fda4da-5819-11e8-a499-c54e35723be3}

device                  partition=I:

path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe

description             Windows NVME

locale                  nl-NL

osdevice                partition=I:

systemroot              \Windows

This does not seem to work. When booting the second option, the systems complaints about '\Windows\system32\winload.exe'.

Any ideas on how to get this working? Should the Windows bootloader be able to access the NVME drive? Is there something wrong with the BCD configuration? Can this be achieved using an alternative bootloader?

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments

Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous
2018-09-05T21:21:42+00:00

I've managed to get the system booting from the NVME some other way:

  1. Converted the NVME to GPT using MBR2GPT.EXE
  2. Hacked NVME support into the bios

Was this answer helpful?

4 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

0 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful