Windows 10: PC wont boot when I remove secondary hard drive

Hi guys,
I'm trying to remove an old secondary drive which is making an annoying noise but when I do my pc wont boot. It just has a black screen and nothing happens. I think the problem might have come from when I installed ages ago and kept both drives in. How can I change it so it boots from my main drive? Any help is much appreciated.

:)

 

this Windows 10 Anniversary update taking 12+ hours to install and counting. HELP

Had the same trouble here...the update fails to load windows on the 2nd boot phase of the update. You end up with a black screen and the caterpillar going round and round but windows never boots. If you have any secondary Hard drives connected to your
PC external or internal, remove or disconnect them to do the update. I have an IDE drive as main drive and SATA as a secondary internal plus a 3rd drive external. I disconnected all but the C\: drive did the update and it worked. Hope this helps.

 

Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key

Hi,

Usually this error message occurs if in the BIOS, booting is set as to start from CD Rom or floppy drive as first boot device. Where as you are trying to boot from the Hard disk.

For help with the BIOS settings, refer to the computer manual or contact the manufacturer.

• Check updating your Motherboard BIOS.
• Make sure your hard disk drive is set as Master.

The master (primary) hard drive is the main bootable drive plugged directly into the IDE cable from the computer's motherboard. When you start your computer, the motherboard will primarily address the master hard drive to set the computer in motion.
The slave (secondary) drive will operate as an auxiliary storage drive. A slave (secondary) hard drive needs no jumper settings. When a slave drive is installed, the master drive (the primary drive) must have a designated configuration to
tell the computer which drive is the primary boot drive.

Hope this helps. Get back to us for further queries. We are happy to help!

 

So you have 2 hdds...does each have a OS on them? If so, sounds like the MBR for both hdds are on the same hdd. The one you're removing. You can use some 3rd party software and move the offending MBR to the correct drive......
Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

 

Hi Freddy1013 and welcome to the forums. You might have installed Win10 and the boot files ended up on the second HDD. Take a look at post #3 from this thread Can't re-establish Master Boot Record on my Windows 10 Boot drive - Solved - Windows 10 Forums. It should fix your problem. I did the same thing a while back.
Bob

 

Agreed. Conventional wisdom suggests unplugging all drives except the ODD/Optical Disk Drive and the C: or intended boot/system drive before installing an OS/Operating System just to prevent such a situation happening. Frequently doing Win10 Upgrades, such as from Version 1511 to Version 1607, can be an issue with External USB drives plugged in at the time.

 

Thank you! Once I figured how to get into bios that worked perfectly. If I'd know it was so simple I would have done it ages ago. The hard drive noise was making me go nuts. Thanks again!

 

Your welcome. Glad you got it resolved.
Bob