Windows 8 on two partitions, won't boot!

[orangedude]

Hi,

Recently I just bought a new PC along with a 180 GB SSD. My previous PC had Windows 8 installed on one of the hard drives already.

Here is what I did:

1. Installed Windows 8 on SSD on my new PC
2. Moved my old HDD (2 TB HDD) with Win 8 over to my new PC
3. Attempt to boot into new Win 8 partition.

However, the boot loader now seems to be confused with 2 Win 8 partitions, and fails to boot into either win 8 installation with "Error loading OS". Any suggestions on how to fix this besides formatting my 2 TB HDD?

Thanks

 

[manofchalk]

When you installed Win8 to the SSD, was the HDD connected to the system?

 

[noidea_77]

IT sound like the new pc tries to boot from the hdd. Either make sure the ssd is the first boot device or reinstall win8 with only the ssd connected to get a boot loader installed on it.

 

[orangedude]

When you installed Win8 to the SSD, was the HDD connected to the system?

No it was not.

I tried both methods, first time HDD was connected to the system and the new OS would not start at all during first boot.

Second time, I removed the old HDD then installed Win 8 on SSD. Was able to successfully boot into SSD with no issues. It only fails to boot again once I reconnect the old HDD.

 

[orangedude]

IT sound like the new pc tries to boot from the hdd. Either make sure the ssd is the first boot device or reinstall win8 with only the ssd connected to get a boot loader installed on it.

Even with SSD as first boot device, as long as the HDD is connected, it still seems to just be confused for some reason

 

[manofchalk]

That is strange, cant think of a reason why it would do that. You sure the boot order is set up right?

You might have to re-format the drive.

 

[orangedude]

That is strange, cant think of a reason why it would do that. You sure the boot order is set up right?

You might have to re-format the drive.

I have tried messing with boot order as well as "selecting boot partition" in F12 to select boot partition. I tried both drives and they each fail with "error loading OS" as long as both Win 8 drives are connected.

Was hoping it wouldn't come to that =/

 

[noidea_77]

Do you have the latest bios installed for your mobo? I saw a lot of update for win8 compatibility lately.

 

[orangedude]

Do you have the latest bios installed for your mobo? I saw a lot of update for win8 compatibility lately.

Good idea, I will try that. My mobo is Gigabyte Z77-D3H

It just occurred to me as well that both Win 8 installations are using the same product key. Maybe Microsoft has some built-in detection to stop 2 Win 8 installations with same key from existing on same PC.