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Booting issue with drives

Anonymous
2024-10-13T15:52:23+00:00

Hi,

ive recently been given an old PC (built in 2015) by my brother and it has was working fine until it was given to me. After i got it i used it for about 3 days and it worked perfectly but its recently had a lot of issues. Firstly the PC reformatted my eternal hard drive wiping it and then changed its boot order to boot off the wrong internal hard drive (the one without the windows operating system, drive 1 isnt where it should boot, drive 2 is) which left me confused. I managed to reformat my external hard drive using my old laptop and i got the PC working i just had to go into the BIOS boot menu and select the correct drive every time it started. It now has a new issue though which i cant seem to fix. on start up, booting from drive 1 displays a message say windows failed to start insert windows installation disk and that the drive is missing "FILE: \Boot\BCD", booting from drive 2 says operating system wasnt found. try disconnecting any drives that dont contain the operating system". I have even tried booting from a USB and the PC just says "disk read error occurred" i tired using the boot menu to boot from the USB and it says the same. The USB contains the windows 10 installation media and ive even used rufus to make sure its a bootable drive. ive tried only plugging 1 drive at a time and booting, ive plugging them all in and mixing and matching. literally nothing seems to work. i cant afford to take it to a repair shop and im certain im just being stupid. please can someone help i need the pc to do my college assignments.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Install and upgrade

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-10-14T06:30:27+00:00

    Hi Finch Chiacchia,

    Thank you for reaching out here in the Microsoft Community.

    In your description, one of your computers is currently unable to boot into Windows from a USB drive.

    I note that you have tried a number of things, including using rufus as well as just using a drive, etc. Thank you for your efforts in trying to resolve this issue, and I understand the frustration of not being able to use the computer and not being able to repair it.

    The problem could be related to missing system files, or a BIOS error, or a hardware failure, and we can try possible options before checking the hardware.

    In order to prevent data loss during the follow-up process, please backup the data in your hard disk before trying the solution.

    We judge that it may be some problems with the BIOS settings in your computer. Please refer to the following steps

    Format your two hard disks (make sure to backup your data)

    Then refer to the following link and use media creation tool to create an installation media for your system on a USB drive

    Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

    Note: Just create the media creation media, don't use a laptop to install the system into USB

    Then insert the first hard disk and reset the BIOS settings according to the motherboard manual or the device manufacturer's instructions.

    Disclaimer:  Microsoft provides no assurances and/or warranties, implied or otherwise, and  is not responsible for the information you receive from the third-party  linked sites or any support related to technology. 

    If you are going to modify BIOS Settings, please  back up all your personal files first to ensure you do not lose data.

    Then insert the installation media of the system you made earlier, try to set it as a boot device in the BIOS, and see if the computer can boot normally.

    If it does, insert a second hard disk.

    See if that helps after this.

    If the problem still persists, then there may be a hardware failure in your computer, please contact the device manufacturer and have them perform a hardware check on your computer.

    Please try the above options and let me know the results and I will determine the problem for you based on the results.

    Thank you for your understanding and support.

    Best regards,

    Zev - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

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