formatted boot drive by mistake

mahanster

Reputable
May 9, 2014
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Just installed a Samsung evo 840 SSD on my laptop to serve as the new boot disk. Ran the software it came with to Clone my original hard drive's data. Ran the BIOS to have the system boot from the new SSD. Restarted the computer and saw that the Windows logo was over the SSD. I assumed I had done everything correctly. When I went to format the original drive, however, It warned me that some files were currently being used and asked if I still wanted to continue and like an idiot, I said yes. Now on start-up I get a blue flashing screen, running fan and that's about it.

Can someone help? In addition to cloning the original HDD, I made a back-up recovery on a USB flash stick.
 
Solution

At a guess the Clone failed to copy over the System...

At a guess the Clone failed to copy over the System Reserved Partition containing your Boot data. If all else fails you may be able to recover the Partition using EaseUs software. Meanwhile, what method did you use to create the Recovery on the USB? If it included copying the Recovery Partition and you hadn't upgraded your Laptop to 8.1 via the Store you should be OK to complete a full Recovery. But, if you proceed with that it will wipe your SSD, and if for some reason it fails you're totally stuck. Would suggest you try out the Recovery on your old HDD, but that would ruin any chances of recovering your System Partition.
Try booting from the Recovery USB anyway, see if it allows you to access Advanced Options via Troubleshoot Menu.
If so, open Command Prompt and see if bootrec /fixmbr does anything for you

 
Solution