Lost Windows Boot Manager

Question

I had a 50 WD M.2 SSD and got it almost full so I decided to upgrade to a 1tb WD NVMe drive. I did a clone of the 500gb drive to the 1tb drive. Booted fine and rebooted OK, then I decided to shut it down completely to install the case side. On start up it won't boot, and got the error insert a boot disk. Upon entering the mobo BIOS, I noticed that the windows boot manager for the drive was missing. When I installed the NVMe drive I was told it was best to run as UEFI and not Legacy. Unbeknown to me, apparently that how I lost the boot sector. I performed the commands BOOTREC/fixmbr ( successful), but on BOOTREC/fixboot access was denied, on BOOTREC/rebuildbcd it said no volumes found. So I reinstalled the 500gb drive and it booted fine, on shut down it wouldn't boot again. SO....... I'm told that switching the BIOS from UEFI to Legacy and back wiped out the boot sector. So my question is is the drive scrambled for good or can the boot sector be repaired again?

Thanks for the help.

Danny

Answer 1

Hi,

You're Welcome..

I'm glad you have resolved your problem, although it would have been nice if it were fixable..

Answer 2

THANK YOU for the reply and help. Tried to do a repair from the ISO disk of build 1903 with no success. Having giving up and trying to repair the 1tb drive, I wiped it clean and did a fresh install from the ISO of 1903, which has now been updated to 20H2(?). I really didn't want to have to reinstall all of my programs. I have data backed up to my cloud, so no data loss.

THANKS again

Danny

Answer 3

Hi,

Those commands are kind of finicky.. I think after 15063 Windows 10 Creators (1703) Microsoft changed something.. I started having problems as you describe trying to do the exact same thing I had been doing previously..

UEFI Bios also complicates things as the boot files are no longer on C:, but the separate "EFI" partition..

There are ways to address that issue, but I'm not familiar enough with the process to advise you on that..

I will just say that just because you are getting the Access Denied or No Volumes found, doesn't mean your Windows is junked..

One thing you might try is using the command prompt or the "Repair" feature of Windows 10 installation media..

If you could manage to find an ISO of the build I mentioned previously, it might help even more.. Unfortunately they are very hard to come by..

Answer 4

Thanks for the reply and help. Can you explain why when I try the commands BOOTREC/fixboot and BOOTREC/rebuildbcd won't allow me to have access?

Thanks again

Danny

Answer 5

Hi,

If you set the bios properly for the way the 500mb drive was created, it may boot properly.. The 500mb drive..

If you have both drives attached while messing with this it will cause problems..