Windows Boot Problem

[PhillCap]

I reinstalled Windows onto my USB again and booted my PC back. Had to install Windows again and now everything else's working but I've still got a little problem. When installing the OS my PC ran into a problem while installing it onto my First disk (Disk number 2) and got an error. After that I've tried installing it onto my second Primary disk (Disk number 4) and it worked but now every time when I'm booting into Windows it's asking me whether I want it to boot from disk number 2 or disk number 4. What should I do to prevent that?

 

[mrpete2]

Possible methods to solve your problem:
1 - remove the partition on disk 2
2 - wipe disk 2 and then put a new partition on it / method 1 is easier
3 - you can just remove the boot flag for the partition on disk 2

If there is a way to remove the boot attribute from a partition using MS Disk Management I am unaware of it.

Before doing ANY of the suggestions below you might do well to uncable (while powered off) any HDDs that you are not currently going to be working with. You can really shoot yourself in the foot BIGTIME if you do the wrong thing when you are messing around with partitions.

The open source program GParted (gparted.org) can do most of the work mentioned above. Because this is about Windows you have to be able to boot from CD/DVD/USB to use GParted. You create a bootable CD/DVD/USB of GParted and then boot from it. If you have a secure boot UEFI setup then you have to get your rig configured so it can boot from CD/DVD/USB. You will be booting a "single purpose Linux tool." It's a great tool ... if you are able to use it (can boot it).

Method 1 - Remove the partition on disk 2. The bootability is an attribute of the partition. If you remove the partition it then will not be bootable. You could do that through Disk Management in Win10 or through some utility like GParted or the Windows utility "Partition Wizard Free Edition." There are many other utilities that can work with partitions. Afterwards you can create another partition if you want to.

Method 2 - You could wipe the HDD using some utility like Victoria (soft-book.net) or some other low level HDD manipulation program. That's about 100000% overkill, but it will work. You will overwrite (delete) the MBR or GPT. Afterwards you can create another partition if you want to via one of the utilities mentioned above.

Method 3 - Remove the boot flag for the partition on disk 2. Of the tools mentioned above (as far as I know) GParted is the only one that can do that. I'm sure there must be other ways to do this without GParted, but I don't know what they are. Using GParted you select the HDD (/dev/sda, /dev/sdb, etc.). Then you right click on the partition and click on "Manage Flags" from the context menu. Simply deselect the Boot flag, click Close and then click on the Apply button near the top of the window. To shutdown use the Exit icon on the desktop.

 

[mrpete2]

You know ...

Maybe I didn't read your question correctly. I thought you had more then one physical HDD, but you might just have one HDD and multiple partitions on that HDD.

IMPORTANT: If you only have one HDD then do not use method 2!

Methods 1 & 3 will work for both setups.