M.2 Size Upgrade Clone Removes OS Choice Menu

Hill Bros PC Tech · Jan 11, 2017

I upgraded my main drive from 256GB to 500GB and after doing so I no longer get a choice of operating systems, it just boots straight to Windows 10.

Here' the hardware:
Old Drive: SK Hynix SC308 SATA 256GB M.2 SSD
New Drive: Samsung SSD 850 EVO M.2 500GB

Software used for cloning: Samsung Data Migration

OS: Dual Boot Windows 7 Pro and Windows 10 Pro (WinX Primary)

I've used Samsung Data Migration multiple times before without flaw, but never on drive with multiple OS's. When I boot into Windows 10 I can still see my Windows7 partition along with all the files still intact. The drive letters are exactly the same as they were before.

I have read around the interwebs and ran across many articles where the drives won't boot at all, but not anything specific to my issue with the multiple OS's where 1 will boot but not the other.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated as I use Windows 7 primarily because of compatibility.

ArtPog · Jan 12, 2017

I'm not really sure I can help you in resolving the problem you've run into. We've been having some problems dual-booting Win 10 and Win 7 and/or Win 8.1 also and I'm unsure if the problems we've experienced are relevant to your situation.

I wonder if you would be good enough to provide information concerning your multi-OS configuration, along the following lines...

1. Obviously the dual-boot setup was created on the 256 GB SSD and presumably there were no problems booting to either Win 7 or Win 10, right?

2. Can I assume the 256 GB SSD was MBR-partitioned?

3. Presumably there were two partitions set up on the SSD, each one containing an OS. (I realize there might have been other partitions, e.g., System Reserved, UEFI perhaps, System Recovery possibly, but those are not relevant).

4. Was the Win 7 in the first partition and Win 10 in the second partition?

5. How were the two OSs installed in the first place? Was the Win 7 OS fresh-installed or was it cloned from another drive?

6. Was Win 10 fresh-installed in the second partition or was it also a clone?

7. How did you manage the multi-boot aspect? When you booted the PC, did Windows provide a menu (option) that allowed you to select either Win 7 or Win 10?

8. Or did you utilize Disk Management to "Mark Partition as Active" (selecting the OS on the partition you wanted to boot to when next you powered-up the PC)? (I'm again assuming the disk was MBR-partitioned).

9. Or did you use a third-party boot manager to determine which OS to boot to? If so, which program?

If it's not too much trouble I'd appreciate receiving your responses to the above.

Hill Bros PC Tech · Jan 12, 2017

Please see my responses in Red and thank you for the reply.

ArtPog :

I'm not really sure I can help you in resolving the problem you've run into. We've been having some problems dual-booting Win 10 and Win 7 and/or Win 8.1 also and I'm unsure if the problems we've experienced are relevant to your situation.

I wonder if you would be good enough to provide information concerning your multi-OS configuration, along the following lines...

1. Obviously the dual-boot setup was created on the 256 GB SSD and presumably there were no problems booting to either Win 7 or Win 10, right? Correct

2. Can I assume the 256 GB SSD was MBR-partitioned? Correct

3. Presumably there were two partitions set up on the SSD, each one containing an OS. (I realize there might have been other partitions, e.g., System Reserved, UEFI perhaps, System Recovery possibly, but those are not relevant). Correct

4. Was the Win 7 in the first partition and Win 10 in the second partition? Correct

5. How were the two OSs installed in the first place? Was the Win 7 OS fresh-installed or was it cloned from another drive? Windows 7 was preloaded from Dell

6. Was Win 10 fresh-installed in the second partition or was it also a clone? It was fresh installed on the new partition

7. How did you manage the multi-boot aspect? When you booted the PC, did Windows provide a menu (option) that allowed you to select either Win 7 or Win 10? Boot Menu with Windows 10 as default and Windows 7 as the second choice

8. Or did you utilize Disk Management to "Mark Partition as Active" (selecting the OS on the partition you wanted to boot to when next you powered-up the PC)? (I'm again assuming the disk was MBR-partitioned). N/A

9. Or did you use a third-party boot manager to determine which OS to boot to? If so, which program?N/A

If it's not too much trouble I'd appreciate receiving your responses to the above.

Hill Bros PC Tech · Jan 12, 2017

So I just now fixed it. I was going to try bootrec, but before I could get to it I ran into a different fix. Here's what I did:

1. Booted with Windows 10 USB Flash.
2. Chose Repair Your Computer option from the install screen after the "Install Now' option was selected
3. A message popped up something along the lines of "Windows found an issue with your startup, would you like to fix it?"

I chose yes and it rebooted and I got the OS Selection menu like I used to, with the only difference being Windows 7 now says (Recovered) after it. Boots up and works fine every time.

ArtPog · Jan 12, 2017

Many thanks for your responses to my queries. Glad to hear the Win 10 repair utility was able to resolve the problem.

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M.2 Size Upgrade Clone Removes OS Choice Menu

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