Why cant i boot from a harddrive even though its detected in BIOS?

_kain

Reputable
Jul 29, 2015
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4,510
I had a 1TB drive with win7 installed but it started to get full so I bought a 2TB and did a fresh install of windows 7 on it a couple months ago. I have been booting from the 2TB and using that, with the old HDD still plugged in incase there where any files I needed to drag over.

So today i decided to disconnect the 1TB and just use the 2TB. When I booted up again i got a BIOS message 'Please select a bootable media' or something similar. If i restarted and held F8 to get into the boot menu, I could see the 2TB drive there, but if i pressed Enter on it, it showed the same error message.

I then went into the full BIOS menu and went to the 'boot' tab. I set boot priority 1 for the 2TB drive and boot priority 2 for CD drive, and rebooted. I got the same error.

I plugged in the old 1TB drive again and I could boot up using the 2TB drive. How can I boot from the 2TB drive, without having the 1TB connected?

(The reason I want to remove the 1TB drive is because it makes alot of noise)
 
Solution
Did you install Windows onto the 2TB drive while the 1TB drive was still attached?

The most likely reason for your issue is that the SRP (system reserved partition) is on the 1TB drive and that includes the bootloader.

Try starting up with only the 2TB and your Windows installer disk inserted and do a system repair. If that doesn't work you can create a small (100-200MB) partition on the 2TB drive using a portable version of EasyBCD, which will take a bit more explanation if you need to use it.

RealBeast

Titan
Moderator
Did you install Windows onto the 2TB drive while the 1TB drive was still attached?

The most likely reason for your issue is that the SRP (system reserved partition) is on the 1TB drive and that includes the bootloader.

Try starting up with only the 2TB and your Windows installer disk inserted and do a system repair. If that doesn't work you can create a small (100-200MB) partition on the 2TB drive using a portable version of EasyBCD, which will take a bit more explanation if you need to use it.
 
Solution

_kain

Reputable
Jul 29, 2015
7
0
4,510



Hi RealBeast,

That sounds likely as I did indeed install windows with the 1TB still attached. If I perform a system repair with the 1TB removed, will this create a new install of windows on the 2TB? Or will it keep all my data/settings etc but just add the SRP to the 2TB?