Windows 10: Corrupted boot hard drive and reinstalling Windows?

Hello all! Posting from a throwaway

I have a corrupted hard drive issue that I am trying to resolve. I was trying to wipe it clean and start fresh with a completely new install of Windows 10. The new install failed, and I received a blue screen of death error. No matter what I did to get past it, I could not repair it (I tried doing a recovery USB as in addition to a reinstall USB, went through all the menus I could get to and tried different options, etc. I am really exhausted with troubleshooting and don't want to type everything I tried here so bear with me!).

Anyway, I was considering the following as a solution:

My laptop has two hard drives. The primary boot disk is/was an M.2 SSD. I also installed a secondary internal hard drive last year, which is a standard 2.5" SATA HDD that I was using for file storage (the M.2 was for apps and the OS to boot from only). The second disk is not an SSD but it doesn't really matter.

I believe it is the M.2 that is corrupted since my system will not boot now and will not allow a reinstall by alternatively booting from a USB. The SATA should, in theory, be healthy.

So, tentative plan for a fix. Please advise if this could work:

1. Pop open the case, and remove the M.2 drive entirely, with no replacement (for now - temporary).
2. Take out the SATA drive as well, and use my second Windows laptop to ensure it is wiped clean and formatted with no partitions (I already have file backups, no worries there, and I also have an external enclosure I can pop it into to do this)
3. Put the SATA back inside.
4. Reinstall Windows to the SATA as my boot disk. Celebrate having a working computer again!

So, the big question is: will the missing M.2 be an issue, or no, since I will have the SATA in?

Any details I am missing here? Good plan or no? The actual laptop is a Dell Inspiron 5584. Thanks!

Edited to add: I will eventually replace the M.2, but I can't be without my workhorse computer while I wait for the part, so this is more of a workaround until I can get to that.

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:)

 

Windows 7 booting off wrong drive?!?!?

Please move if this is in the wrong place.

I have two hard drives, a 1.5TB drive, and a 160GB drive. Windows is installed on the 1.5TB drive, as are all my files and programs. The 160GB drive has a bunch of old files, and apparently the bootmgr and boot folder. Nothing else is on the 160GB drive, other than media files etc.

If I remove the 160GB drive from the machine, windows refuses to boot, plug it back in, it works fine. The setup with two hard drives I have now is temporary, as the 160GB drive will go into another machine.

My question is, can someone give me a step by step on how to make windows force to boot off the 1.5TB drive, ignoring the 160GB drive in the boot process completely?
I don't know how to do this in Windows 7, on XP I would just run the /fixmbr command and its related ones.

Any help would be appreciated.

Note: I would really really rather not have to wipe and reinstall, I know it can be done without one as I've had this issue with XP before.

 

How to wipe a hard drive

Sounds good, but I can't load any cds upon boot or even in windows.

I tried to run Win XP pro cd my friend made for me. It wouldn't work becuase The software is so corrupted. The hard drive itself is fine I just need a way to completely wipe the hard drive of everything.

I don't want to just reinstall over the corrupt mess of windows. I want to start over not reinstall brand new OS and have corrupted programs, settings, or info

 

CANNOT DELETE A CORRUPTED FILE ON MY EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE ON WINDOWS 10

Hi Leenus,

Hard drive and other external memory storage can be corrupted on account of bad sectors which are no longer accessible or writable due to permanent damage. Your device or hard drive could also be infected by some type of malware. These are some of the possible
causes why you are experiencing the error "ERROR 0x80070570: The file or directory is corrupted or unreadable". To address this concern, we suggest performing the following troubleshooting methods:

Method 1

Check and repair disk errors or corrupted file system. This process can fix "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable" error caused by bad sectors, virus infection or file system corruption. To do so, follow these steps:

• Back up all of the files on the hard drive (except for the corrupted file).
• Using Search, type CMD.
• From the search results, right-click on Command Prompt and then choose Run as administrator.
• On the Command Prompt window, type chkdsk /f h: (h stands for your hard drive) and then hit the Enter key.
• Delete the corrupted file and check if you'll experience the same error.

Method 2

Format the hard drive. You can manually format the hard drive to permanently remove "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable" error. These are the steps on how to format an external drive:

• Plug the hard drive into your computer.
• Back up all of the files on the hard drive (except for the corrupted file).
• Open File Explorer and then click This PC.
• Click the external hard drive's name, click on Manage tab and then click on Format.
  
• Click Start and then click OK.

Keep us updated with the result.