Windows 10: How to make logical drive with Windows 10 installed boot again?

Hi. This is fairly complicated so I apologize in advance.


A few days ago, I let Windows update itself. It took many hours and many restarts, but appeared fine the next day except the sound wasn't working even though Windows detected no problems. Restarting didn't help so I shut it completely off. But, then it would not boot up - after the BIOS beep, it just sat on a black screen with the hard drive light fully on. I could tell, though, that it wasn't booting. I haven't been able to boot up with that Windows installation since, no matter what I do.


The drive is 1 TB and is broken up into 3 partitions. Before this incident, the boot partition was 100 GB and pretty much only had Windows on it (this was C drive) while the D drive was about 800 GB and I had a 30 GB swap file partition, as well. I read somewhere that this was a good setup for speed and efficiency.


After hours of trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with the boot files/partition/etc. of the then C drive (the 100 GB partition), I gave in and re-installed Windows, but had to do it on the then D drive (the 800 GB partition). The Windows Repair program would not let me install it over my old installation. For that to be an option, apparently I needed to choose the Upgrade option available only if I was already running Windows. So, I had to go with Custom.


Now, my C drive is the 800 GB drive (used to be D) and the E drive is the 100 GB drive (used to be C). It works fine, except I really don't want to have to re-install ALL my software, some of which I may not even have anymore. But the old installation still just hangs immediately when I choose to try to boot it instead of the working Windows installation. I am pretty sure some boot files or the partition got messed up by Windows and I feel like there must be a simple command to get it right, but I have gotten nowhere with Diskpart, bootrec, or BCDEdit. Windows Repair tells me rather quickly that it can't fix the problem either.


Can anyone think of what I might be able to try to get my other Windows installation working again?


Currently, it is just a logical drive so it is not going to be bootable anyway. I don't really know why that happened. Shouldn't it have retained its primary partition status? Or is that the whole problem? If so, how can I get it back to being bootable without losing data?


Thanks very much to anyone who can help.

:)

 

Is it time for Windows 10 already?

Here's a good step by step guide on doing a fresh install.

How to clean install Windows 10 from a USB drive - Software - Feature - HEXUS.net

 

Windows 10 boot drive

Is Windows 10 also limited to a max of 3Tb for a boot drive?

 

Windows 10 USB boot

Hi there, am not a windows 10 expert. I have a pc in the bedroom on windows 10, I messed up the bootloader trying to fix the xp on that system.

System wont boot, trying to repair via win 10 usb installer.

Downloaded the media creation tool to install windows 10 installer on usb stick. Not compatible with a host of usb sticks I have. Tried the usb sticks that others use, but I think they use rufus; as the media creation tool by win 10 does not detect the usb stick.

So quick question, the win10 machine i am trying to repair the bootloader is a win7 upgraded to win10.
If i were to use the usb win10 installer to "repair installation" does the version of the iso downloaded via the media creation tool matter?

There is three options:
Windows 10
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 N

Also is there a step by step instead of using rufus as I want to try an alternative method of creating a usb win 10 installer. Preferably with more compatibility.

System is a asus sabertooth 990 (r2?) with AMD phenom X 6.

Also is there any other software I can load onto the usb that can repair the bootloader easily?
That would be the ideal alternative. Thanks