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

Hi,

Do you want to use the HDD for a Windows backup AND Data, or just data ?

If you just want to use it for data, I would think deleting the Windows boot files on the EFI partition would do the trick.. You could maybe save copies of them before deleting them just in case.. You might need to delete the entire EFI partition, and may need a 3rd party tool to do either.. A bootable Linux based program would be best..

I have never actually tried this in this exact fashion, but have manipulated Legacy and UEFI installations by playing around with the boot files..

Without the boot files and\or EFI partition, there will be no "WindowsBootManager" on that drive..

Another option might be to physically switch the slots that the drives are plugged into..

One thing that confuses me though, is that the Samsung 970 EVO Plus you mention is not a SSD and does not use SATA ports.. Although if you are using a M.2 port it may tap into the SATA Controller.. If so, it probably needs at least two SATA Ports..

Answer 3

Hey slance310, thank you for your response!

Weeell actually I just want tou use it for data, maybe in the future I would like to install a version of Ubuntu on the HDD drive. I kept the Windows Backup on the HDD drive in case the SSD installation (actually, M.2 NvME) failed.

I dont need any data that is now stored on the HDD drive, maybe a couple Word/Excel files from work, but I could send them to my email by accessing them booting from the HDD. So I wouldnt be concerned with completely wiping the drive, but I have never done this before, how could I do it if the only way I can access the HDD drive is by enabling it port through my laptop´s BIOS/UEFI, thus loading the OS installed on said drive?

I am completely sorry, you are right, the "SSD" that im reffering to is actually an M.2 NvME drive, my laptop supports two M.2 slots & one HDD slot.

Greetings 

Fernando

Answer 4

Hello FernandoSuarez,

Thanks for your patience. Please let me know then the results after you follow the link.

Please let me know if you need further assistance.

Sincerely,

Antonio

Answer 5

UPDATE>

Ok, so It took me a while to do this because I wanted to be sure the SSD (m.2 NvME actually) didnt have any problems on running Windows on its own, which I verified by disabling the HDD port on my computer the last four days.

When I finally was comfortable with the m.2 running the OS, I tried to use your solution, which was "booting to the HDD only, and using Windows 10 installation media and start out doing a custom Install."

When I was about to start the whole process, I got a call from Work asking me to send over some files (which I had stored on the m.2), so I restarted my computer, got into the BIOS and enabled the m.2 but forgot to disable the HDD. AND IT WORKED!.

My computer did what I wanted it to do all this time and somehow booted to the m.2 OS WITH the HDD connected as a secondary drive.

So I made sure no important files were left on the HDD and formatted it. Now it will never again boot from the HDD.

Thanks to everyone that helped resolve this problem!

Greetings

F.