Share via

Windows 10 will not load from SSD without hard drive

Anonymous
2020-12-02T01:25:59+00:00

Hello,

Recently I installed a SSD and was able to use both it and a hard drive simultaneously, with the SSD acting as the boot drive.

Yesterday when I turned on my PC Windows failed to stat and the screen advised to restore Windows, which led tot he loss of my files etc. but also resulted in the hard drive becoming the C: drive, instead of the SSD. Furthermore Windows will not start without the hard drive, even though the SSD is still the boot drive on the motherboard.

I tried to run the Samsung Data Mitigation software, believing Windows was loading from the hard drive now, but it did not detect the operating system on the hard drive. So it appears the operating system needs the hard drive in order to boot from the SSD. I also have restricted access, such as not being able to turn on Memory Integrity or reassign drives, despite being an administrator on the PC.

Can you please advise on a solution?

Kind regards,

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Devices and drivers

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

Answer accepted by question author

  1. Anonymous
    2020-12-03T21:53:03+00:00

    The software you used to copy the c drive to the ssd did not copy all of the partitions from the c drive.

    The missing partition and the fact that the ssd partitioning was arranged differently will make the ssd not boot even if you take the c drive out of the pc or disconnect it, the ssd would still be needed to be the first drive connected to the first connector on the motherboard if the ssd has all the partitions present, but it does not, therefore you will get the same errors you are now seeing on pc boot.

    The only way to fix this is to either install win10 clean meaning a fresh install where you will 

    lose all the data and have to reinstall all your apps or you clone the c drive to the ssd, this will keep all of your data and apps and you will not have to reinstall anything.

    If you clone the drive the c drive needs to be the first drive in the system  (disk0)and the ssd (disk1)the second in the system.

    After the clone is completed, check to see if all partitions are exactly the same, if they are shut down the pc, switch the motherboard hard drive connectors, restart the pc, go into the bios, make sure the boot order shows first windows boot manager, the ssd and then the c drive, save changes and boot to windows.

    For aomeitech to work right on the free standard addition, both the source and target drive need to be the same disk layout, this means if the c drive is gpt so does the d drive.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments

13 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2020-12-02T20:38:54+00:00

    Hello,

    Thank you for your reply; as requested please see my disk management window.

    The SSD appears to be the second one (D:) and is smaller than the HDD.

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2020-12-02T08:32:31+00:00

    Hello, 

    Thank you for your reply. I have already tried booting without the hard drive; it takes me to a blue screen with a selection to either retry, go to bios, recovery troubleshooting , and another I have forgotten. I have a recovery drive, system image of a previous state, and a recovery CD set up, but Windows would not recover from them during the troubleshooting. The SSD appears to already have Windows unless you can advise me how to find the operating system directory so I can verify. 

    Kind regards,

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2020-12-02T03:14:56+00:00

    I had the same issue when I had cloned a smaller sized hard drive to a larger one.

    The SSD has to be the same layout as the hard drive if it is MBR or gpt,

    MBR for legacy bios and got for uefi.

    This also depends on the size of each drive, if the SSD is larger or smaller then the hard drive, legacy 

    bios only natively support drives 2 terabytes and under whereas gpt can be over 2 terabytes and over.

    What is happening is that windows still booting off of the hard drive, incorrect SSD drive layout, or missing the windows boot loader

    Is the SSD the first drive physically connected or the second drive one?

    can you post a screenshot of disk management, view, top 

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2020-12-02T02:00:21+00:00

    Hello Mark_95 all right?

    My name is Lílian, I am an independent consultant and I am very happy to help you today.

    I suggest you remove the hard drive and try to boot with ssd only, otherwise, reinstall Windows on ssd. and use the separate hard drive so there are no more conflicts between the two.

    I hope I helped, if I'm not here to solve this problem :)

    0 comments