Boot Drive EFI issue

RossG · 1 Mar 2020 at 21:26

Hey there. I have an irritating issue which im not really sure how to solve. Essentially I have windows installed on my M2 drive but somehow the EFI or MBR, whatever poitns windows to the actual install is on a seperate SSD on my system, probably because it has an old install of windows on it too. What im wondering is, can I move or create an EFI...thing...so the machine detects windows on the M2 when it boots without having to have the old SSD in the machine to point it in the right direction? Thanks.

PS I also have GRUB on another old SSD that I want to remove, wrong forum but if anyone knows how to get shot of that too that would be nice.

Deleted member 77746 · 1 Mar 2020 at 21:32

Something like an EFI backup and restore app should do it. You might need to create a 200mb partition or whatever size it is on the working drive though or something like that to clone it.

RossG · 1 Mar 2020 at 21:36

So if I backed up the EFI partition on the SSD, created a new partition on the M2 and restored the EFI to the new partition it would work ok?

Deleted member 77746 · 1 Mar 2020 at 21:53

RossG said:
So if I backed up the EFI partition on the SSD, created a new partition on the M2 and restored the EFI to the new partition it would work ok?

The EFI partition is just some files. You can read the EFI partition no problem.

Ive played around manually on Windows and MacOS efi partitions before and modified files quite easily.

Mcnumpty2323 · 1 Mar 2020 at 21:59

use msconfig then the boot tab
if it shows 2 boot entries
set the one you want as default
TEST its working right before deleting the other

or use easybcd to alter the boot record

Deleted member 77746 · 1 Mar 2020 at 22:06

mcnumpty are you following me? lol

Good post.

Mcnumpty2323 · 1 Mar 2020 at 22:52

mrbell1984 said:
mcnumpty are you following me? lol

Good post.

If got to follow someone
Might as well be someone half sensible
Like you

RossG · 2 Mar 2020 at 09:24

I created an EFI partition on the M2 drive and ran the following: bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

However windows boot manager is still on the SSD and I can't boot from the M2 (without the SSD).

Deleted member 77746 · 2 Mar 2020 at 09:28

RossG said:
I created an EFI partition on the M2 drive and ran the following: bcdboot c:\windows /s c:

However windows boot manager is still on the SSD and I can't boot from the M2 (without the SSD).

Post 2# instructions here.
https://www.tenforums.com/installation-upgrade/52837-moving-recreating-efi-partition.html

Is the M2 the first boot device in the bios?

RossG · 2 Mar 2020 at 10:55

mrbell1984 said:
Post 2# instructions here.
https://www.tenforums.com/installation-upgrade/52837-moving-recreating-efi-partition.html

Is the M2 the first boot device in the bios?

Not at the moment, I've been manually choosing it, but when I select to boot from it it just chucks me back to the boot devices menu again.
I did have it set as primary boot device but it always moves to the next option.

Mcnumpty2323 · 2 Mar 2020 at 11:50

RossG said:
Not at the moment, I've been manually choosing it, but when I select to boot from it it just chucks me back to the boot devices menu again.
I did have it set as primary boot device but it always moves to the next option.

Did you try easybcd?
It should let you add a new entry
Then set it as default
Then delete it
Once tested it works

RossG · 2 Mar 2020 at 12:05

Just tried. All it does is add another windows boot option. I still need to boot off the SSD rather than the M2 to get to those windows boot options. The issue must be higher up.

Also to clarify the post above, I'm referring to the boot options in the BIOS