Replacing secondary NVMe drive with bigger one stops machine booting... Windows 11 on drive I haven't touched?

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silentcircuit

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I started with 2 1TB Intel 670p NVMe drives when I built like 3 years ago, one boot, one extra space, then replaced the "storage" drive with a 2TB WD SN850X and installed a fresh copy of Windows 11 on it a year or so ago, since I wanted the boot drive to be fastest. No issues there, just went in and deleted the old install files off the 1TB Intel remaining, started installing older games to it, and was happy enough.

A couple months ago I saw the 2TB 670p drives had dropped to like $70 so figured I'd grab one. It sat in the box till today, and since I had to open things up to swap in my new GPU anyway I figured why not get it all done... Shouldn't be hard, the 1TB in there is just storage, I'm not touching Windows.

Wrong.

Now if I swap the 1TB Intel (which just has some game installs and random stuff on it) for the 2TB Intel, leaving the 2TB WD drive with Windows on it alone... Machine won't boot. Boot drive settings in BIOS don't matter, the boot partition is still on the remaining 1TB Intel for some reason.

Screwed around with automated tools and fixboot, but all I managed to do was make the USB install media I was using stop working. Finally gave up and swapped them back.

Is there an easy fix for this, or am I going to end up installing Windows again?
 
silentcircuit said:
I started with 2 1TB Intel 670p NVMe drives when I built like 3 years ago, one boot, one extra space, then replaced the "storage" drive with a 2TB WD SN850X and installed a fresh copy of Windows 11 on it a year or so ago, since I wanted the boot drive to be fastest. No issues there, just went in and deleted the old install files off the 1TB Intel remaining, started installing older games to it, and was happy enough.

A couple months ago I saw the 2TB 670p drives had dropped to like $70 so figured I'd grab one. It sat in the box till today, and since I had to open things up to swap in my new GPU anyway I figured why not get it all done... Shouldn't be hard, the 1TB in there is just storage, I'm not touching Windows.

Wrong.

Now if I swap the 1TB Intel (which just has some game installs and random stuff on it) for the 2TB Intel, leaving the 2TB WD drive with Windows on it alone... Machine won't boot. Boot drive settings in BIOS don't matter, the boot partition is still on the remaining 1TB Intel for some reason.

Screwed around with automated tools and fixboot, but all I managed to do was make the USB install media I was using stop working. Finally gave up and swapped them back.

Is there an easy fix for this, or am I going to end up installing Windows again?
Click to expand...
the efi/boot files are on it. either clone it to the new one or google how to rebuild it.
 
pendragon1 said:
the efi/boot files are on it. either clone it to the new one or google how to rebuild it.
Click to expand...
I tried, and all the potential fixes I've found haven't worked so far. Kind of surprised the installer's automated fix thing couldn't do anything about it - I get what you're saying and it seems straightforward from a distance.
 
I know I've run into this as well when I installed Windows with multiple drives in a machine and I was able to rebuild a boot sector from scratch but that was many years ago. You'll want to search for terms like 'build efi partition windows 11' and I'd suggest removing any additional drives while performing the fix. I'd also suggest downloading the latest Windows 11 media creation tool to build a current bootable USB. Boot to that USB drive, then follow the guide(s).

Example:
This page has some for repairing the BCD, but you'll likely need the steps at the bottom of the page: https://www.diskpart.com/windows-11/create-recover-efi-partition-windows-11-0825.html
Similar steps here: https://www.easeus.com/partition-ma...ted-efi-boot-partition-in-windows-10-8-7.html
See "Manually Recreate EFI Partition Using DiskPart": https://7datarecovery.com/blog/efi-partition-missing/

Those should all be similar, but in short: Unplug all non-OS drives, boot to a Windows USB, use diskpart to re-create the EFI partition on the OS drive.

Once the EFI partition is there, reboot and see if it boots to the OS. It's really that simple... hopefully. If you have secure boot enabled in the UEFI/BIOS, disable it and reset it. If the drive has BitLocker enabled, print out the code before you start this process because it'll probably need to be unlocked after the change.
 
dbwillis said:
Always install windows with a single drive connected!
Click to expand...
I've installed Windows with a single SSD connected, only to have Windows move the boot partition to a mechanical storage drive at some stage well after Windows was installed.
 
silentcircuit said:
Is there an easy fix for this, or am I going to end up installing Windows again?
Click to expand...

What is it showing under the Boot tab of MSCONFIG? (Windows Key + R, type MSCONFIG, hit Enter)

Example:
msconfig.jpg


Do you have more than one entry on that list? If so, set your desired Windows install as default (this should make it bootable on it's own) and delete the second entry.
 
GotNoRice said:
What is it showing under the Boot tab of MSCONFIG? (Windows Key + R, type MSCONFIG, hit Enter)

Example:
View attachment 597840

Do you have more than one entry on that list? If so, set your desired Windows install as default (this should make it bootable on it's own) and delete the second entry.
Click to expand...
I will look when I get a chance, I'm in the middle of a big move right now so very time limited. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
pendragon1 said:
then id clone it, delete anything you dont want after
Click to expand...
Cloning usually won't require intervention when going from the same size drive to another identical one. When you clone to a different size drive (e.g. 1TB to 2TB) you often can't extend the partition in Windows Disk Management, and will instead have to rely on third party tools. This is the only caveat with doing a clone.

silentcircuit here is basically what you will need to do given your situation: https://www.tenforums.com/installation-upgrade/52837-moving-recreating-efi-partition.html#post698505
 
Dopamin3 said:
Cloning usually won't require intervention when going from the same size drive to another identical one. When you clone to a different size drive (e.g. 1TB to 2TB) you often can't extend the partition in Windows Disk Management, and will instead have to rely on third party tools. This is the only caveat with doing a clone.

silentcircuit here is basically what you will need to do given your situation: https://www.tenforums.com/installation-upgrade/52837-moving-recreating-efi-partition.html#post698505
Click to expand...
most clone tools have an extend option, even the free ones oems provide. thats how i cloned my 256 to a 1tb a month ago, crucial provides a version of true image.
he said he attempted all the normal repairs.
 
bluestang said:
Same here. This has happened to me on multiple machines.
Click to expand...
Yep, had me totally perplexed for a bit. I knew I set the boot partition up on the SSD when I installed Windows, yet here I was removing one of the mechanical storage drives and Windows refused to boot without it fitted.
 
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