WD Green Drive Will Not Boot in HTPC

IronFixXxeR · Jun 19, 2013

I have an HTPC that I recently installed a fresh version of Windows 7 on. I saved my old dying 120GB drive that I was using for this HTPC. When I have only the WD Green drive installed it refuses to boot/detect windows. It only says something along the lines of "insert correct boot disc". I have the WD drive selected as the first boot option in the BIOS already.

If I start up the HTPC with both the old and the new drive in there it will start up and ask me which windows 7 install to boot from. Then it lets me start up form the new WD Green drive but only then!

I haven't updated my motherboards BIOS yet to see if this will solve the problem. I've heard that green drives should only be used as storage but it seems a good number of people use them as main drives for HTPCs these days. Any idea how to fix this?

SchizTech · Jun 19, 2013

I think I might see the problem. What was your configuration when you installed Win7 on this WD Green drive? Specifically was the old 120 GB drive still attached?

Windows 7 creates a small utility partition (only 100MB) at the front of the drive which is used to store the boot files. If a system reserved partition was available on the 120GB drive at the time you installed Windows on the new Green drive, windows may have re-used the boot partition on the old drive. SO, there may be a Windows install on the new Green drive which depends on boot files located on a different hard drive altogether!

A re-install with only the Green drive present would fix it, though you might be able to repair Windows to create the system reserved partition. This would still take time since it would involve re-partitioning the hard drive, and moving all the data forward to create 100MB of clear space on the drive to create space for the system reserved partition. Then you can do a Windows repair. Otherwise, just boot the Windows install disk, delete all existing partitions on the new drive, and create a new partition. Windows will then automatically set up its boot properly.

IronFixXxeR · Jun 19, 2013

SchizTech :

I think I might see the problem. What was your configuration when you installed Win7 on this WD Green drive? Specifically was the old 120 GB drive still attached?

Windows 7 creates a small utility partition (only 100MB) at the front of the drive which is used to store the boot files. If a system reserved partition was available on the 120GB drive at the time you installed Windows on the new Green drive, windows may have re-used the boot partition on the old drive. SO, there may be a Windows install on the new Green drive which depends on boot files located on a different hard drive altogether!

A re-install with only the Green drive present would fix it, though you might be able to repair Windows to create the system reserved partition. This would still take time since it would involve re-partitioning the hard drive, and moving all the data forward to create 100MB of clear space on the drive to create space for the system reserved partition. Then you can do a Windows repair. Otherwise, just boot the Windows install disk, delete all existing partitions on the new drive, and create a new partition. Windows will then automatically set up its boot properly.

Yes, the old 120GB drive was still attached when I did the new Win7 install. >_< That sounds like it is the problem... thank you so much for the info! I'll post again when this is resolved!

popatim · Jun 19, 2013

Boot up the win7 installation dvd with just the green drive installed and then run startup repair by selecting "Repair my computer" on the windows INSTALL NOW screen.
The repair program will require you to select the operating system it finds then hit Next and on the following screen you will see the "Startup Repair" option at the top.

IronFixXxeR · Jun 24, 2013

popatim :

I had tried to repair but the Win 7 install never came up on the list. I just caved in and reinstalled the OS with only the green drive installed and it worked perfectly. Thank you all for the help!

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WD Green Drive Will Not Boot in HTPC

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