Cant boot from SSD, Windows Boot Manager

Question

I have an acer Nitro 5 AN515-43 which came with a Ryzen 3550h, 12gb ram, and 1 TB HDD.

Upgraded it with a Samsung 970 EVO Plus (500gb) and used samsung´s data migration tool to clone the HDD drive into the new SSD (decided not to format the hdd in case i ran into a problem), and somehow (i really cant remember) i managed to set the SSD as the boot drive for the Windows 10 OS.

Everything was working fine, computer was running extremely smooth untill today.

I tried turning it on but it never booted, just got a black screen.

I forced a shutdown pressing the power button and restarted it.

When it restarted I immediately noticed something was not right. The OS was laggy, programs werent opening as fast etc. Checked the primary drive, the SSD was still marked as the primary OS drive, the HDD was marked as a storage drive D:. Suddenly I noticed the HDD drive was making noise, so I opened task manager under the permormance tab, and I saw that whenever I opened a program, the HDD drive usage would bump up while the SSD usage wouldnt budge.

Tried restarting (nothing, same as before).

Shut down, got into the BIOS (actually UEFI) (didnt change anything), exited without saving, but this time I immediately noticed the computer booted from the HDD Drive, not only because it took waaay too long to boot, but because the moment I got into the desktop I saw that it was configured exactly the way I left it 2 months ago when I started booting from the SSD (even airplane mode was on as I had to enable it to use the samsung data migration tool.

So I shut down the computer, got into the UEFI menu in order to try change the boot order, but the thing is whenever I go to the "Boot" tab, Windows Boot Manager is listed Twice, and the only item listed under "Boot Mode" is UEFI, cant even change it to Legacy, I even tried setting up a UEFI password, but still no luck.

So I tried disabling the HDD slot 0 (where the hard drive is installed) (SDD is in slot 2), exited and everything was fixed. The computer booted super fast, everything was exactly like yesterday.

The thing is for this to work, I have to Disable the HDD slot 0, therefore my computer cant recognize the old Hard drive. But I want to use it for mass storage.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

F.

Answer 1

Hi,

I have been playing around with this scenario.. I happened to have two spare SSDs with Windows 10 UEFI on them.. I had been running Legacy at the time of my reply..

Making a long story short.. I never ended up with two WindowsBootManagers..

I ended up with two "Microsoft Windows" options.. After selecting one of them, I ended up with a Microsoft Windows and a WindowsBootManager.. The second Microsoft Windows selection never converted, but was bootable selecting the "Microsoft Windows"..

I then used a 3rd party bootable tool called Parted Magic_2019_11_04... It has a File Manager that I used to RENAME the "EFI" and "Windows" folders in the "EFI" partition rather than deleting them.. This solved the problem of which drive got booted into, but I was still left with a "Microsoft Windows" boot selection... It didn't work, but was still on the list...

Out of curiosity I then deleted the actual "EFI" partition.. Problem solved.. The unwanted SSD does not appear on the Boot Options and the machine does not try to boot to it.. All files on the drive are available..

In your case, you will need a 3rd party tool to delete everything on the HDD, or to edit it.. Any of the Parted Magic versions prior to the one I mentioned should work.. I mention this because the earlier version were free and could be downloaded as a bootable ISO.. That is no longer the case..

One other possibility... Use Windows 10 installation media and start out doing a Custom Install with your M.2 drive removed or Disabled in Bios.. You can delete everything on the HDD this way..

Just stop the installation after the deletions... Boot to your M.2, and use Disk management to reformat the HDD as you wish..

Any other questions, feel free to ask..

Answer 2

Hello FernandoSuarez,

I am Antonio, a Microsoft Community independent advisor and a Windows 10 user like you. I hope I can help you on your concern.

Was the HDD reformatted when you make it as the secondary drive? or not?

Please try these steps

Note: Connect both your SSD and HDD. SSD will be your first boot.

1. When you login in windows, go to run and type msconfig
2. In System Configuration screen, go to Boot tab
3. If you see multiple OS in the list, select the OS on the SSD

4.Click Set as Default button.

5. Restart your PC and check.

You're response is highly appreciated. Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Sincerely,

Antonio

Answer 3

Hello Antonio, thank you for your response!

The HDD was not reformatted when I turned it into my secondary drive, as I wanted to keep everything in case my SSD failed.

Both the SSD and HDD are conected (inside the laptop), but I disabled the HDD port in the UEFI settings. If I enable that port the computer will automatically choose the HDD drive as the primary drive and the SSD will be set as a storage drive, I cant change this in the "Boot" tab as the only options it gives me are two instances of "Windows boot manager"

greetings.

F.

Answer 4

Hello FernandoSuarez,

Thanks for you feedback. What do you see in the msconfig Boot tab? Do you see 2 instances of Windows OS? Can you please send me a screenshot?

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Sincerely,

Antonio

Answer 5

Hello Antonio, Thank you for your response.

This is what I get when I get into the Boot tab on msconfig using both drives.

For comparison, this is what I get with only the SSD connected to the motherboard.

In case this helps you, this is what I get under Disk management with both drives connected (the 1TB is the HDD, and the 500GB is the SSD)

And this is what I get when I disconnect the HDD from the motherboard.

Please let me know if you could use anything else.

Thank you for your help, it is really apreciated.

Greetings

Fernando