WIndows 10 iso

Weird.

It sounds like your bios is set okay for boot order and if available Windows 10 should have AHCI.

So I guess it's not possible to put power to another slot to try another SATA position. Are the HDD positions modular so the power and data are connectors in the physical position for the drive and not on flying leads, so you can't just move a lead to another SATA position on the motherboard.

There are a few approaches I would use: (with the second drive connected)

1. Can you boot to the Command prompt. If you boot to the sign-in screen can you get to the Troubleshoot menu using Power (hold down shift) and select Restart.

If you can then select Troubleshoot then Advanced options then Command Prompt. (I want to try to see what partitions are on the second drive) At the command prompt type Diskpart and press return. You will see a prompt with DISKPART>

Type list disk (press return)

select disk 1 (press return) assuming the D: drive is on position 1.

Type select partition (press return)

Similar to this, but I selected disk 0

What partitions do you see on the second disk. Is there just one primary partition, or multiple like my example.

Do you feel like setting the bios to default. You should take screenshots of the bios settings you have looked at for boot sequence (in case windows doesn't boot after the change). Like you say you wouldn't normally change any settings unless you really have to.

Is there a bios update available. Not suggesting you should update it but it might be worth finding out.

As far as I can make out MPT boot is for SCSI drives and I've found references on Dell forums, is the machine a Dell?

When you used the Linux Mint live disk to copy files to the second drive I assume there were no errors and copy worked okay.

Hope this makes sense, let me know.

Yes I would.

This doesn't take me to a website, but is a direct download.  How do I know it is a safe windows download?

What instructions do you follow. You should use the Media Creation Tool to get the ISO or create bootable USB media.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Instructions for a repair install.

http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/16397-repair-install-windows-10-place-upgrade.html

Hello and thank you for contacting us. My name is Angelo and I am an Independent Adviser on here.

Try this ISO file:

https://software-download.microsoft.com/pr/Win1...

And burn the USB stick with Rufus

https://rufus.ie/

Regards

Angelo

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