Windows 10: Botched an MBR fix, now I can only boot from HDD instead of SSD

Here's what happened:

The computer had an SSD C drive and a HDD D drive. The SSD contained Windows 10, upgraded from windows 7. The HDD contained a bunch of files.


I installed a new SSD alongside the existing drives, but the computer would not boot. I didn't know this at the time, but it's because the original SSD C Drive got unplugged during the process. I used a Microsoft Repair USB and ran some commands in an attempt to fix the boot issue. The commands I ran were:

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /scanos

bootrec /fixboot

bootrec /RebuildBcd


One of the commands failed due to "access denied" I think it was /fixmbr. Anyway, I discovered that the original SSD was unplugged and plugged it back in. Based on some feedback in this thread, I was able to restore Windows 10. However, I have inspected the drives and found a problem.


The original SSD has a partition style of MBR, but so does the hard drive. I can only boot into Windows 10 from the hard drive. Trying to boot from the SSD causes an error saying no OS can be found, even though the SSD is where Windows 10 is supposed to be installed.

:)

 

Fix boot problem (MBR I think?)

Hi

I installed windows 10 on my laptop where it had 2 drives, a SSD and a HDD. The Windwos installed on the SSD but for some reason the MBR (I think is the name?) was installed on the HDD so when I took out the HDD because I don't need it, it can't boot, it
can't find any boot device. If I select SSD in boot order same thing happens so theres something missing here (MBR ?).

Is there a way to fix this without re-installing windows.

**Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.**

 

Windows 10 MBR boot - bootrec /rebuildbcd says "requested system device cannot be found"

During the cleanup after building my PC I managed to break my Windows installation and I can't figure out how to fix it without starting over.

I have a Samsung 960 M.2 SSD in an Asus Strix X370-F and 2 sata HDDs. I've installed Windows 10 pro on the SSD from an old DVD via a USB DVD drive. I've accidentally booted the DVD in legacy mode instead of UEFI for the install, and it formatted the SSD in MBR. For some reason it also formatted one of the HDDs in MBR and made a 500-ish MB system partition on it.

After setting up everything, I nuked the HDD and reformatted it as GPT with a single partition, deleting the system partition. So now I have an MBR SSD with the OS and a recovery partition and 2 GPT HDDs with some user files, but nothing related to the system.

The PC comes up with a blank prompt. I tried running the boot recovery from the DVD both booting it as UEFI and legacy but it did nothing. I tried bootrec /fixmbr and bootrec /fixboot, they completed successfully, since then I get missing bootmgr at boot. I tried bootrec /rebuildbcd, it finds the Windows install but then says "requested system device cannot be found". I tried the suggestion to export and delete my bcd first but that failed too, I don't even have a boot folder.

All guides I find for next steps suggest to create an EFI partition but I can't do that on an MBR drive. What can I do instead?

Thanks a lot!

 

Dual boot on SSD and HDD (Windows 10 and Ubuntu)

I have an Acer Aspire S3 (20GB SSD and ~500GB HDD) and I want to install Windows 10 on the SSD while creating a ~400GB partion on the HDD for windows. I would use the other 100GB on the HDD to install Ubuntu (I wont be using Ubuntu very often). This is what I did:

1. Format the SSD and the HDD
   
2. Install Windows 10 on the SSD
   
3. Use diskpart to create a partition of 400GB in the HDD
   
4. Configure windows
   
5. Install Ubuntu
   
   • Create partitions for swap, / and /home in the 100GB of the HDD
     
   • Tell Ubuntu to install the boot loader on the SSD
     

But now, the computer start's always with windows instead of loading grub. I took a look at the Bios boot order then, but I couldnt find the SSD (I thought that was the reason why grub wasnt loading (?)). This was the boot order:

1. USB HDD:
   
2. HDD: Hitachi HTS54...
   
3. USB FDD:
   
4. Network Boot:
   
5. USB CDROM:
   

(Hitachi HTS54 ... Is my HDD)

Is there anyway to repair this or any steps to do it correctly ?
Thanks