Windows 10 Windows Boot Manager on wrong drive

You would need to...

• Shrink the partitions on C and create a SYSTEM partition
• Copy the BCD file to the correct location on the system partition
• Modify the boot manager entry with bcdedit partition value to be partition=C:

Hi,
You're post is quite confusing but we may be able to help. You say you are trying to remove the hard drive, but you don't say WHICH drive by letter designation. Which drive and letter are you having the problem with? C:, E:, J:, K:, I:?

Also, when asking a question like this it's customary to at least provide us with some basics. What version of Windows are you running? What Make/Model is the computer? Is it a desktop PC or a laptop? Is it an OEM PC (Dell, HP, Acer, Toshiba)? Self-built PC or Custom-built PC?

It's hard to solve a problem you've had for weeks or months without this kind of information.

If you didn't know which drive is the Bootdrive (C: drive), then who added all these extra drives to your computer? Did you buy it with all these drives from someone?

There a number of repair tools you can use to fix this problem, but if you remove the C: drive and it doesn't boot from the other drives, this is normal as only ONE DRIVE, THE C: BOOTDRIVE is responsible for booting Windows (commonly referred to as Drive #0). If any of your other drives are USB drives, which it appears to be, none of those drives are capable of booting Windows, so of course removing the C: drive will cause your system not to boot.

Thanks,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

Neemobeer said:

You would need to...

• Shrink the partitions on C and create a SYSTEM partition
• Copy the BCD file to the correct location on the system partition
• Modify the boot manager entry with bcdedit partition value to be partition=C:

Click to expand...

>>>@neemo: Well this would be a problem if the OP removed his C: drive (Drive #0). A system partition alone on a secondary drive won't have Windows OS anywhere. That's why I asked him the question which drive he physically removed from the machine.<<<
>>>BBJ<<<

Technically speaking is boot drive is really C and I at this point since he has the two required parts spread out.



The bootmgr entry needs to point to have the "partition" entry point to the physical disk and volume. So it has to be setup like so if for example its the third volume on the first disk
partition=\Device\Harddisk\Volume3 or whichever physical disk it's C is on.

Hi

You can download EasyBCD it will make it easy to see what's going on, and create a boot file on the drive that you want.

EasyBCD

There's a free version and the bottom of the page.

You should be able to add the Unallocated partition to Drive I:\ in disk manager.
They are both on the same physical drive.

You should leave the Recovery Partition on Drive 0, C:\ alone.
Normally there would be a System Reserved partition on Drive 0.

You can probably create one, as Nemmo has said.

Not sure how you get the correct data on it though since this is usually created during Windows install. On my computer it's only 350 Mb.

Mike

Hi all Thanks for your replies,

Sorry I didn't know what information I needed to include.

The drive I am trying to remove is disk 1 which has the I drive in it. There is currently nothing on this drive it is all empty except I think the boot manager is on this drive?

This is an OEM self built machine with Windows 10 installed on it. The windows folder is on the C drive.

When I remove the I drive from this machine and then try to boot up with the C drive selected in the bios, I just get a black screen with a blinking curor.

Thanks again everyone for your help.
Wilson

Hi Mike,

Sorry If the post was a bit confusing, I am trying to remove the I drive from the computer and boot from C drive.

C drive has windows 10 installed on it.

Thanks.
Wilson

Hi all,

Sorry, could someone please help me with this problem?

I would like to remove the "I" drive from my computer.

Thanks
Wilson

Sorry could anyone help with this problem?

Thanks.

Thanks Saltgrass,

It is working now, I was able to boot into windows from C drive and removed the I drive.

Cheers
Wilson

This helped me as well. Thank you very much!

bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

I have practical the same issue in Win10. I used the BCDboot command the files were written (it showed) but actually nothing changed. What should I do? I need to remove my old Win7 drive (that is working at the moment) to change it inside the warranty as it has been getting bad time after time (SSD). Any thoughts?
What about the easybcd tool? How can I find it fro free?

Hi

If Windows is on Drive C:\ you should be able to tell EasyBCD to create a boot sector on Drive C:\, after that it should boot from drive C:\ .
EasyBCD will be able to see what drive Windows is on if you ask it scan for operating systems.

After you have changed it in EasyBCD reboot the computer and bring up the boot menu, f8 on my computer, and tell it to boot from Drive C:\.
Make sure that it shows C:\ as an available bootable drive and then boot to it.

Then unplug the other drive and try rebooting once more you should be good to go.

You can do the same thing manually as Saltgrass described.

EasyBCD

Mike

Is there another way without paying. Easybcd is not free.

There should be a free version for home users, I've never paid for it.

It's at the bottom of the page on the right, Non Commercial FREE.

Is it going to work? I did what Saltgrass indicated but didn't work. All seemed OK but still the drive was not bootable. NTLDR missing.

All you can do is try, the other option is to reinstall Windows on the drive you want to boot to, with the other drive unplugged so that it will create the boot sector and install the OS all at the same time on the new drive.

I've always had good luck with EasyBCD, and it's easy (as it says), to use but I haven't done what you are trying to do in a long time so it's not fresh in my mind. But if I remember correctly you only have to select, Change boot drive, Select the drive you want to boot to, and click go ahead or something like that, and it will do it automatically.

Read though this and see if it's what you are looking for.

https://neosmart.net/wiki/easybcd/basics/changing-the-boot-partition/

Make sure that the drive you want to boot to is ahead in the boot order but after whatever removable media you want to be able to boot to i.e. your DVD drive.

It should be something like, 1 DVD drive, 2 Drive C:\, 3 other drives.

I 'll give it a try.