Struggling to sort Boot drive

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 13:43

Hi all,

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My original boot SSD was full (only 50gb) so wanted to upgrade for more storage. I purchased a 500GB SSD. I used a 3rd party app to clone the disk partitions onto my new SSD, which it did.

I then thought it would be as simple as swapping the original SSD out for the new one, but when I booted I got the message 'Reboot and Select proper Boot Device or insert Boot media in selected boot device and press a key'. I also had a 500gb HDD attached, but that's always been attached.

I've entered BIOS and tried reordering the boot priority to no luck, and so I'm a bit stumped to what I'm doing wrong?

If anyone has any ideas, that would be really useful!

Thanks

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 13:59

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 14:00

Armageus said:
What app did you use?

Most here will recommend Macrium Reflect Free Edition, https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree which will take care of cloning, resizing partitions and setting your boot drive appropriately

That's actually what I used. I haven't had any problems whatsoever cloning the drive, it's just when I swap them out it won't then boot?

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 14:02

joey1211 said:
Disconnect the extra drive and try booting

I tried this and got the same error message?

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 14:10

joey1211 said:
In Macrium, did you choose to 'Image this disk' instead of 'Clone this disk'?

Pretty certain that I used Clone this Disk.

When I open Macrium I can see all of the partitions of the drive I'm swapping out on the new drive. Correct size, etc.

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 14:39

joey1211 said:
Maybe go through the process once more.

Just tried a fresh install and getting the same thing again, Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device.

Really confused?

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 14:43

If it changes anything, when it's booting I get 'No physical Disk'. Which again is strange as when I enter BIOS and look at Boot Priority, the SSD is there?

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 14:59

Armageus said:
Are you connecting it to the SATA port where the original SSD was?
(As it can be that sometimes different SATA ports are on different SATA controller chips, and Windows may not be expecting the change)

Yeah using the same SATA port. Literally no idea what's going wrong. When I enter BIOS, I can see the SSD, I make sure to place Windows Boot at 1 and then my SSD at two in priority (although have also tried it in reverse). But I still get nothing. When its initialising, it searches for SSD and doesn't bring anything up, it just reads 'no physical disk' which is really strange?

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 16:57

Armageus said:
Have you tried using Macrium's fix boot option mentioned above

Yes, just tried this. It seemed to be along the right lines, and I got that it had built a windows boot menu succesfully. But then when I shut down, and remove the original ssd and try booting up, I double check in BIOS that the boot priority is correct, and then get the same message again Reboot and Select proper boot device!

RC1917 · 21 Feb 2022 at 18:56

Armageus said:
Boot from a macrium reflect usb drive with the old drive removed and then run the boot repair

Just tried this now. Managed to get the windows loaded up on the usb and went through the Fix windows boot menus. The only box available to tick was rebuild BCD, did that and just as itu looked to start I got 'Restart your computer?' so I clicked yes and it just booted back to the same window, so second time I clicked no and it just did nothing? If i remove the USB I just get the originaly Reboot and select window?

RC1917 · 22 Feb 2022 at 11:01

Armageus said:
Boot from a macrium reflect usb drive with the old drive removed and then run the boot repair

Have tried this several times today. However, whenever I remove the USB and try to boot straight from my new SSD again, I simply get the Reboot and Select Proper Boot device. Checked Bios and definitely the correct boot priority.

RC1917 · 22 Feb 2022 at 11:24

mickyflinn said:
Do a fresh install of Windows.

So a couple of other things that might help anyone with more knowledge. I reconnected my original SSD and tried another cloning using Macrium. This time I left XML ticked, and when I got to the end I received the error 'MapAndValidateXML Failed'. Not sure if that means anything? Also, from browsing forums, I've spotted people saying you can't clone in UEFI? I have [UEFI] in the title bar, could this also be causing a problem?

RC1917 · 22 Feb 2022 at 12:57

mickyflinn said:
It may be something on your old drive conflicting, when cloning works its great.

Sometimes it's just best to a fresh install of Windows .

Okay so I've just done this on your recommendations and something strange has happened that might have a simple explanation. So I downloaded my fresh install onto USB, had just my new SSD connected. Installed Windows, but obviously where I had cloned before I still had my other data on this hard drive. So complete the install, and when I reboot I come to a screen which asks me to choose an operating system with Windows 10 (Volume 5), Windows 10 (Volume 3) and Macrium System Recovery. So if I click on Volume 5 I get the fresh install with nothing in there, my storage has two local disks, my new SSD and then my old SSD. If I boot in Volume 3, I get my old system, completely how it was but on my new SSD. However, in storage it still has my old SSD size and is completely full (which is what I wanted to change). So I'm a bit unsure what to do from here if I'm honest? Any suggestions? I'd love to keep all of the stuff from my old drive, just with more storage capacity, but I don't want to have to choose a partition every time I boot up?

RC1917 · 22 Feb 2022 at 13:22

Okay, I might wipe the new SSD completely and then restart from the beginning. Is there a best way to completely wipe an SSD? Thanks for your help.