Windows 7 won't boot when I remove 2nd OS drive

[stickerhed]

Hello,

I have a windows 7 64 bit system with 2 drives that have OS on them. Every morning it asks me which one to boot to. I choose the first one (the most recent SDD I put in). I did this because I needed more room for the software we use so it is larger than the first. The problem is, when I remove the smaller SDD (that I don't boot to), it will not boot. I've gone into the bios and made sure it is booting to the SDD, it just says loading operating system ........., then, after a minute is says Boot to DVD or USB. Can anyone help me?

thanks,

Doug

Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB (the one I am trying to remove)
Intel Sandy Bridge 2600k
16Gb Patriot Ram

 

[thently]

Yes this is a known issue For whatever reason MS decided that it should put the recovery on a diffrent drive than the OS drive if it is available. Also a big note if the recovery partition cannot be found the OS does not boot.... So when installing OS to new SSD you need to have that drive be the only drive plugged in until OS is loaded then you can plug in other drives. I do not know of a way to fix this other that to reload windows.. Maybe someone else might have an idea.

Thent

 

[stickerhed]

Yes this is a known issue For whatever reason MS decided that it should put the recovery on a diffrent drive than the OS drive if it is available. Also a big note if the recovery partition cannot be found the OS does not boot.... So when installing OS to new SSD you need to have that drive be the only drive plugged in until OS is loaded then you can plug in other drives. I do not know of a way to fix this other that to reload windows.. Maybe someone else might have an idea.

Thent

Since I can get it to boot with both SDD in place, can I move the recovery so it will boot when the other SDD is removed? I dont' know if it will help, but I did create an image of the disc using windows backup. That is stored on a an external HD.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Yes this is a known issue For whatever reason MS decided that it should put the recovery on a diffrent drive than the OS drive if it is available. Also a big note if the recovery partition cannot be found the OS does not boot.... So when installing OS to new SSD you need to have that drive be the only drive plugged in until OS is loaded then you can plug in other drives. I do not know of a way to fix this other that to reload windows.. Maybe someone else might have an idea.

Thent

The event you describe only happens when multiple non OS drives are in the system when you install the OS. The problem the OP has is he already had an OS in his computer then added a second SSD without disconnecting the first. In this case windows sees the previous OS and creates a dual boot scenario, thus the boot menu asking which OS to boot.

In the situation you describe above, removing the old SSD would prevent the computer from booting, not show a boot menu.

@OP: You need to use a program like bcedit or easybcd to remove the old OS from the boot menu.

 

[mcnumpty23]

disconnect the ssd you want to remove and try this

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

 

[stickerhed]

Best answer selected by stickerhed.