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How to restore Windows Installation to new SSD

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I have boot problems with my 250GB SSD (Disk 3 see below). Probably because in the past I added this second 250GB SSD to my system (with a 60GB SSD) with a fresh Windows 10 install on the 250GB SSD.

I have a good working Windows partition on this 250GB SSD, but it does not seem to have a hidden system partition. So my plan is to repartition this 250GB as a new SSD including a system partition  and restore the windows installation with my Acronis backup. Is this possible?

 

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Edwin, welcome to these public User Forums.

Is your Windows system still able to boot correctly as it is now?  If so, then there are a couple of different approaches that you could try before doing what you have been considering above.

How many copies of Windows are installed here?  I will assume that you only have the one Win 10 install which is on Disk 3 but because you did a new install to that disk, that the hidden / system partition(s) are probably on Disk 0, which is where they expect to be found.

The possible options would be:

  1. Download a copy of the free EasyBCD tool and use this to move the Windows BCD location from where it resides now, to have it on Disk 3.
    Note: If this is a Legacy / MBR system, as suggested by your error when trying to create a new EFI partition where GPT is not being used, then the BCD can be on the OS partition.
     
  2. Create or use a copy of the Windows 10 install media to boot the computer after first removing or disconnecting all other drives except for Disk 3, then use the Repair option to access the Windows Recovery tools and select 'Startup Repair' to let Windows resolve the BCD issue.

You only need an EFI System partition for UEFI / GPT boot systems and this should ideally be created by Windows when doing a new install.

No, I have no working Windows anymore because the system cannot boot from the disk. I have tried bootrec /scanos with a positive result that the OS is installed.

The problem started when I decided to make all other disks inactive except the one with my OS on it. Apparently now the system is missing something to boot.

You are right. It is no GPT volume.

I am afraid I do not know where the old BCD location was. Maybe I can try to find it on the other disks.

 

Option 2 I have tried already. It cannot repair starting up the PC with the tool.

 

Is there a way to first do a clean install of Windows including new partitions and then restore my windows partition via acronis?

 

Edwin, the obvious location for the current BCD is on your Volume I: shown as 100MB in your first screen image above - I expect that this is the missing Microsoft System Reserved partition that Windows 10 is looking for in order to boot correctly.

I have booted the system with another SSD and I looked into the 100 MB system partition of the 60GB disk. Here I see some boot information. In the folder Boot I see some BCD files. How can I copy this to my 250GB harddisk? Should I first make a new partition? How to do this with EasyBCD?

 

Edwin, if you have installed EasyBCD then this has an option in the BCD Backup/Repair panel to 'Change boot drive' which would move the BCD store to the new location / drive.

Note: this should be done from the correct Windows 10 installation on your Disk 3 drive, so assumes that you can boot that OS by having the 60GB drive with the working BCD installed along with disk 3 to allow the move.

I have just installed Windows as a new installation. I cost me too much time to solve the issue.

Edwin, still check where the MSR (or EFI system) partition is located after your new install of Windows, ideally it should be on the same disk as the OS, which in turn should really be shown as Disk 0 in an ideal world.

Steve Smith wrote:

Edwin, still check where the MSR (or EFI system) partition is located after your new install of Windows, ideally it should be on the same disk as the OS, which in turn should really be shown as Disk 0 in an ideal world.

System BIOS/UEFI can make a mess of disk numbers. On my first generation Ryzen PC the SATA drives are assigned numbers before M.2 drives. My more recent Intel systems do not have that problem.

Ian