Windows 10 Boot Manager Not Found after secondary drive replaced

Pool player · Jul 10, 2020

I did a fresh install of Windows 10 on a new Samsung SSD drive several months ago. I have a second drive in my system which is my data drive. I've had no issues for several months. Yesterday I decided to replace my secondary drive with a bigger drive. When I powered up my computer I get a message Boot Manager is missing. Installed my original drive and computer booted fine. When I looked at things with the Disk Manager my boot drive Is formatted as a GUID with 2 partitions. The main partition and a recovery partition. My data drive is formatted the same with 2 partitions. One is hidden and is 200Mbytes EFI, System Partition. No doubt this is the boot manager location. I read another post on here with the same issues. The solution suggested was to run bcdboot to fix the issue. Will that program create the hidden partition on my C: drive? I don't want to mess this up as it will take many hours to start over again loading a fresh copy of windows and my programs.
Thanks for your help.

Jimbo22 · Jul 10, 2020

That's because you OS was on the HDD with the MBR. Then you added SSD with HDD still attached. Even though you installed to OS on the SSD the MBR is still on the HDD. You removed that drive with MBR on it so no boot.

You can simply reattach old HDD and it should boot unless you wiped it.

I would suggest removing all drives except for the SSD and then do a clean install on the SSD. Then reattach your HDD's, the format them then use them as storage.

Or you can use a 3rd party software like Macrium, Acronis or Aomei to move the MBR to the SSD.

Jimbo22 · Jul 10, 2020

That's because you OS was on the HDD with the MBR. Then you added SSD with HDD still attached. Even though you installed to OS on the SSD the MBR is still on the HDD. You removed that drive with MBR on it so no boot.

You can simply reattach old HDD and it should boot unless you wiped it.

I would suggest removing all drives except for the SSD and then do a clean install on the SSD. Then reattach your HDD's, the format them then use them as storage.

Or you can use a 3rd party software like Macrium, Acronis or Aomei to move the MBR to the SSD.

Pool player · Jul 10, 2020

The secondary drive never had an OS on it. It was for data only. A new SSD was installed when Windows 10 was installed. The SSD was selected as the drive to format and load windows on. Why the boot loader was installed on another drive is beyond me. I really don’t want to do a clean install as i have days worth of programs that will need to be reloaded. Never had this issue with windows 7 and I’ve loaded Windows 7 on dozens of my customers computers.

Jimbo22 · Jul 10, 2020

Pool player said:
Why the boot loader was installed on another drive is beyond me.
[/QUOT}
Was the HDD still attached when SSD was installed? What drive was used with the previous OS?

Jimbo22 · Jul 10, 2020

Pool player said:
Why the boot loader was installed on another drive is beyond me

What drive was used originally before the SSD was added? Was that drive still attached when the new SSD was added? What was the boot order in the BIOS set at when adding the new SSD?

When attaching a new drive HDD/SSD for the OS to be installed. It's always best to at least unplug cables from current HDD/SSD that are in the system. This will eliminate the MBR being installed elsewhere other than the intended drive.

Pool player said:
I really don’t want to do a clean install as i have days worth of programs that will need to be reloaded

As stated.....you can use a 3rd party software mentioned before to move the MBR to current C drive. You'll need to check youtube for video help on how to do that. All those that have done say it's pretty straight forward. That said, it's always better to have a backup if something does go wrong.

Personally I prefer the clean install method....especially if you have UEFI BIOS. This way it sets up the SSD as GPT instead of MBR

As for reinstalling all other software....yes it's a big PITA but this way you know for sure it's done correctly.

Pool player · Jul 10, 2020

The original drive was a small drive running windows 7. It was removed and destroyed and not in the computer when win 10 was installed. Both drives in my system now are GBT format. The BIOS Has the windows boot disk set to drive zero. Guess I could clone by boot drive and try to install the boot manager to the clone. Problem with that sometimes windows 10 will not boot from a clone. Yes my computer has the UEFI Bios which can cause problems like this. Do you know anything about windows Bcdboot command? Someone else on one of these forums used that command to fix the same issue. He didn’t include any details on setting up the partitions. When I had windows 7 running I could remove the secondary drive anytime and had no problems with win 7 booting.

Jimbo22 · Jul 10, 2020

It's a new one to me dude. Yes...I've heard of the Bcdboot command....but I've never had cause to use it. I'm sure of you YouTube it you;ll find some videos on the subject.

Palladini · Jul 20, 2020

I have seen the same thing on my Desktop cxomputer. I have 5 Hard Drives, i disconnect 4 of them, install windows 10, reconnect my Hard Drives. Restart my computer and check the drive and windows has taken over 2 hard drives

Windows 10 Boot Manager Not Found after secondary drive replaced

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