Why is my OS not running on my SSD?

I have Samsung RF711 and run Win7 64bit. I have one HDD and one SSD installed, both internal. On purchase about 3 years ago I got an Intel SSD installed by the vendor. Things worked fine until an event a few weeks ago caused a need for a restore. SRS5 restored the System but on the old HDD not the SSD. I then did a OS migration with EaseUS Partition Master. Again things seemd to work fine. Then strange things happened:

1. On switching on the laptop a few days ago I got the Ease US Partitoin Master Dos style message window that the clone finalized successfully, the one I had done several days ago. System worked fine.

2. At next start up my laptop started off my old HDD not the SSD, as it had done previously, even though I had set the boot record priority with DVD first, SSD second and HDD third. I had not erased the HDD as I wanted to keep a clone for a worst case scenario. However since the laptop started on the HDD I thought the best course of action would be to delete the files on the HDD, so I did a format of the old HDD.

3. When I switched on this morning I got a Windows boot loader message saying that a device was not recognised windows could not boot. So I figured for some reason the laptop tried to boot from my old HDD instead of the SSD, I checked the boot priority in Bios and sure enough my previous changes had not been saved even though I expressly made sure to save and exit. Anyway, once I exited the bootloader screen the machine booted fine on my SSD!

4. To test I switched off and tried to boot again, this time it was impossible I got the windows bootloader message again and this time exiting also did not work, it just returned to the same windows bootloader message.

5. So I popped in a Win 7 recovery DVD from Samsung as it asked and sure enough a message came up saying Windows found an error should it fix and reboot. I chose this option and it did boot. However I am terrified now that if try to boot again there will be an issue. What should be my next course of action? Or has Windows now fixed the issue?

Sorry to bother you all with this.

 

After cloning a drive it is recommended practice to reboot the system without the original drive installed in order to ensure that Windows is only using files on the new drive. Once this is known to be working correctly then it should be OK to put the old drive back in.

It's possible that after your recent cloning Windows looked at the boot files on the SSD, found something which referred to the HDD (which had been copied over during the cloning) and then continued by booting from the HDD.

I would use one of the BCD Editing programs to check what the boot info is on the SSD and, if necessary, make any changes. I've done that at some time in the past but not recently.

John

 

Indeed, all the guides say that you should remove the original drive before you boot, however, someone on another forum suggested to me that this was unnecessary if you set the boot priority. I did this and it seemd to work fine for a few days. However I think what you suggest must be exactly what happened. Something must have referred to the HDD, only after the HDD was formatted did the problem appear.

However, I have now put in the original Win7 System Recovery Disk and went to 'repair' and Windows out of itself immediately offered to repair the system as it found a problem. So my hope is that this is now fixed. However, I will look into BCD editing programs to see if those can tell me if the boot files on the SSD are fine or not. If there was some way in Win7 to find out if your boot files are fine or not that would ideal.

 

Ok the Visual BCD how to section tells me

The problem could lie here. My old HDD is still disk 0, the SSD is disk 1. Perhaps the easiest way would be to open the laptop and swap the two hard drives' position.My quandry with Visual BCD is whether I should try to have the tool do some changes now or first try to boot to see if Windows itself managed to repair whatever the problem was when I used the Win 7 Recovery disk.

 

I would first wait a few days to see if Windows fixed the problem.

If it didn't then drive swapping is the next option.

John

 

Thanks John, that's what I'll do.

If I do use the BCD editor, they advise to save the BCD store. Suppose I do that, if I make change and things go wrong how do I re-insert the saved BCD store? Is it basically copying the relevant saved files and copying and pasting them over those in the BCD store on the SSD?

 

Oh, I finally got around to post a response here in your other thread, before noticing this, more recent discussion.

 

I don't know the details of using BCD. It's a very long time since I used that method for fixing this type of problem.

I have had a few problems with cloned drives not booting but my usual approach is to clone again with different options. One method is to make a backup image then restore it on to the new drive without the old one being in the system.

John

 

Dannemand apologies for the confusion since my new problem is not the same as the SRS5 issue I thought I would create a new thread.

John, thanks I do have a backup image, if a new boot fails I guess I can try to restore that.

 

No worries, no confusion, I understand that it was a different issue. You DID mention it briefly in the other thread, and I commented on it in my response there -- mostly along the same lines as John's response here: The propensity of Samsung's BIOS to fall back on a boot partition on Disk 0, and the propensity of Windows Boot Manager (on the MSR) to look for a Windows installation where it last found one (in this case on your HDD). Most likely that's what caused the problem -- possibly exacerbated by EaseUS failing to create new partition IDs during cloning.

 

Thanks for your understanding. Thinking about it indeed the two issues are related, different points in my laptop adventure so top speak. I am bit surprised that the SSD is disc 1 and the old HDD disc 0, because when I bought the laptop and had the vendors install an SSD I thought they would have set the SSD to be disc 0 as they told me they had a few problems and had to swap discs.If that was the case and the old HDD became disc 0 again after my SRS5 restore a few weeks back then with an OS migration when the System again migrated back to SSD I would have thought that it becomes disc 0 again. Unless this is purely determined by the slot in which you connnect the disc which would mean that the vendors never changed the slots of each disc.