Critical Boot Files on Secondary Drive??? HELP!

Ok All...please put your thinking caps on! So far, I have spoken to both an MSI tech and the head of tech support at XoticPc and neither of them know what is going on. The MSI tech is convinced it's something that occurred at Xotic...and to Xotic's credit, the head of Tech support is researching the issue....Now to the issue at hand:
I currently have the laptop in my sig with Windows 7....I ordered an received a Samsung 830 SSD 256GB to replace the secondary WD 750GB mechanical platter drive currently in the laptop. Today, I swapped the drives out, piece of cake. When I tried to boot the laptop back up...I was getting a boot error. The laptop is trying to boot from the Realtek LAN card...So I entered the Bios and saw that the boot order was set up correctly...1st choice: Patriot SSD 2nd Choice: Samsung 830, 3rd Choice: Optical Drive, 4th Choice: disabled. When I first received the laptop, this secondary platter drive was not seated and was loose in the bay so this same exact thing happened the very first time I turned the laptop on out of the box. Simply seating the drive and realigning the boot order in the bios fixed the issue no problem. However, now...no matter what the order is in the bios, the laptop absolutely will not boot from the Primary Drive (the Patriot SSD) if the Samsung drive is in the secondary bay instead of the original WD mechanical drive. Heres the kicker...when I remove the Samsung SSD and replace it with the WD 750GB Mechanical Platter drive..it boots right back up no problem. Now keep in mind that there is nothing at all on this WD platter drive (698GB out of 698GB free). I am thinking that there are some critical boot files sitting on the secondary drive for some reason. Why else would the computer ONLY boot if the WD platter drive is physically in the laptop? I also tried keeping that secondary drive bay totally empty and it still would not boot...I have attached a screen shot of what my disk management screen look like....can anyone please tell me if I am indeed correct...and there are boot files stuck on the secondary D: drive...and if so....what it is the easiest way to migrate the partition with the boot files from the WD mechanical back to the Primary Patriot Wildfire?? I am not extremely savvy so simplest solution is best....Thanks in advance!
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I can tell you why it's not working: it looks like youre MBR is sitting on that second drive if I'm understanding you correctly. It won't boot if you remove it. As for how to fix it, I'm not 100% on this, but try removing the second drive, booting a windows installation disk, see if it finds your windows installation on your C: drive, and ask it to repair it, it should rebuild the MBR on the existing C: drive, rebuilding the MBR may be in the advanced options somewhere, I can't remember I haven't loaded windows repair for a while. That's my 2 cents, can't promise it'll work. I'm not sure how it will handle it since your windows partition is the entire disk and it will have to shrink it. Alternately you can use an EasyBCD cd if you can't get it to work with a windows install disc. I prefer EasyBCD when I have boot problems.

But it's odd how it got like that, did you do a clean install yourself or were the drives already partitioned and windows installed when you got it? Generally a clean install will place the MBR on the same disk as the windows partition. Even though your boot order is correct, it's not booting from C:, it skips to the next one on the list and boots from D: because that's where your MBR is.

 

As a best practice you should remove all other physical hard disks containing Microsoft Operating Systems on your PC before you install Windows on a new hard drive. By removing all other bootable media you will force the bootloader will be installed on the same physical media.

I made the mistake of buying a 2nd HD (Western Digital) drive once and when I installed the drive and installed Windows 7 side-by-side my Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system I found that when I wanted to backup the OS, BOTH drives were considered critical drives to completely image the OS. I found that the cause was Windows 7 stored the bootloader on my 1st HDD (Samsung)! Both drives were needed for Windows 7 to be operational. If the Samsung disk fails, Windows 7 fails. It's like RAID without the RAID. Very lame indeed.

If you look at the screenshot you provided in the attachment it appears that the bootloader is not installed on the SSD, but on a separate drive.

The Windows 7 system reserved partition is a critical partition in 7 because it contains the boot loader required to boot your OS.

Notice that your SSD is Disk 0, but the System Reserved is Disk 1

Preferably the System Reserved and Local Disk should be on same disk #.

I would suggest finding a suitable backup media to backup all your existing files on your SSD, then disconnect the secondary HDD in your laptop (leaving ONLY the SSD drive installed) and then proceed to install a fresh copy of Windows. By doing so you will force the bootloader to be installed on the same drive which would eliminate your problems, providing this was the problem.

 

It's obvious from the screenshot that your bootloader is on the 750gb HDD. It's disappointing that neither MSI nor XoticPC figured it out.

The bootloader can be in any non-software-RAID0 partition, it doesn't have to be in the System Reserved one.

 

Sarge is right, i you install the OS on a SSD and one or more mechanical drives, it is possible that the MBR will end up on the HDD. This happened to me on my desktop.

I think there is a way to either move it or reconstruct the MBR on the SSD, though i don't remember how.

 

A backup is advisable but a fresh install is last resort.

Recovering the Windows Bootloader with EasyBCD - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

Option 3.

 

TeraByte Unlimited Knowledge Base

 

Thanks for all the replies...No I did not do a clean install...this is how I received the notebook from XoticPc..and I am really annoyed with them...first my laptop arrives with the secondary drive unseated and loose in the bay....(they forgot a bracket or rubber stopper)...then when I ask them to send me one immediately because I'm goign out of town, they drop the ball and dont send it out until like 5 days later (when I emailed to see why I had not received it yet, service rep told me they were waiting for a shipment of the necessary part to come in)...umm okay, so for that whole week I take it they were delaying the build of all systems due to a shortage of rubber stoppers..riiiiiight and now this. I described the scenario perfectly on the phone the other day and the Head of Xotic Service admitted he had no idea what was going on...I even emailed him a picture of my disk management page...and I havent heard back at all...I find it hard to believe with them building dual hard drive systems every day that they wouldn't know how to load an OS properly so this doesnt happen...I didn't pay 2K for all this hassle....so now that my ranting is done...my next question is ...if it comes down to me having to do a clean install (which I really would like to avoid) and my primary drive being an SSD that is 60% full (OS, Battlefield 3, Norton IS 2012) won't all the rewriting negatively affect the health of the drive?? I don't like the idea of 70GB worth of data having to be rewritten all over again on the SSD...not to mention I have to spend hours reinstalling updates and firmware....needless to say...next time I'm DEF going with Gentech or PowerNotebooks...

 

You can use a windows repair disc(there is a option in windows to burn such a disc but I cant remember now, a quick google should lead you there) to recreate the MBR or
EasyBCD work aswell but may require more research.

 

My laptop came with a sealed copy of Windows 7 and also a recovery disk...would either of these have the necessary files to repair the boot files? Also, Can someone please describe what exactly EasyBCD is and where I can find it? I apologize...but I really am ignorant to dealing with these types of issues....thanks!

 

Yeah I mean that disk management image alone should have easily showed them what the problem is. The support guy is either inept or wasn't giving you his full attention and was hoping you would go away for the time being. The windows 7 disk will contain the windows repair tools, when you boot from it instead of selecting to install windows, select recovery options, or repair options. I don't remember, but you'll see it, it's the option that isn't Install Windows.

EasyBCD is a more advanced bootmanager utility, and requires a bit more know how than the Windows repair options. It can be found here:

Download EasyBCD 2.1.2 - NeoSmart Technologies

However, it's pretty straight forward and well organized, and I use it to solve boot issues. They have a good wiki as well.

This link contains their directions from there wiki on how to repair/reinstall a broken boot loader, (in your case missing = broken) using either a windows install disc, which you have, or EasyBCD, which you can download from their site.

Repairing the Windows Bootloader - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

It's a pretty easy and straight forward fix, but it can be unnerving the first time you mess with it if you're not used to messing with MBR's and configuring dual boots n the familiarity that comes with the experiences. Read the directions, see which method you think you would like to attempt and go for it!

If you choose the BCD option, you'll be attempting "Type 3: Re-Creating all Bootloader Files and Settings from Scratch."

If you choose the windows option, I would try option 1 first, the automatic repair, and if that doesn't work, attempt it manually.

The only thing I'm not sure about your situation is that since you don't have a corrupted existing mbr, you don't have that small 100MB boot loader partition on your C: drive. I'm pretty sure BCD creates that for you if you select that option, but I'm not 100% sure if the windows method can create that partition if it doesn't already exist. I would try the BCD method first.

 

NotebookNeophyte,

I was asked to review this thread. If you want to move your booting files from the second HD to the first HD so the first HD will boot when it is the only HD in the computer, let me know.

 

Take out the secondary HDD.


Put in windows disk and go to recovery options.

Click command prompt option. Then type fix mbr

Reboot and enjoy

 

the basic fixmbr [device_name] doesn't work past XP since Vista onward uses bcd.

the minimum would be:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force
attrib -h -s C:\boot\BCD
del C:\boot\BCD
bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

but I'm not sure that will work for him since he doesn't have an existing MBR and no boot sector on his C: drive and has no C:\boot. I'm not quite sure on how to move an mbr. I think bootrec.exe /fixboot somewhere in there will set the right windows partition as active and create an MBR for him on it, but I'm not sure.

 

Firstly, thanks to all for the replies...As I am out of town and using a work laptop, I will be looking into implementing one of the suggested fixes either very late tonight or tomorrow....

Brian K, thank you for your review of this thread...I would def be interested in hearing your opinion as to the best method of fixing this..If at all possible I would like to avoid a clean install becasue of rewriting so much data to the already 60% SSD....thanks!

 

NotebookNeophyte as we have discussed over PM I am sorry to hear of these concerns. Again as I have reviewed with you over PM I believe the hard drive might have came loose during shipping. As for the rubber stabilizer that was indeed our mistake and we were awaiting these items from MSI to ship to you. I agree it should have been included and apologize for the wait on that item.

As with the 2nd hard drive myself and our Service Department have offered solutions to fix this which is similar to those that have suggested here. Doing the Windows repair I think will fix it and should be a option to consider.

I dont know if you are not getting our replies but the same Service Department representative you were speaking with emailed you last night after hours (9 PM and 10 PM CST) in reply to your previous days email.

Feel free to shoot me or him a message and we are always happy to help and clear this up. I show our Service Representative is also addressing some upgrade options on your primary SSD you had asked about to we are helping you with.

 

Just to emphasize what MAA83 said earlier
I would highly recommend backing up the SSD before any changes are made. If you have a desktop you may need an adapter, or find someone with a dual bay laptop, or compatible builtin jack.

 

NotebookNeophyte,

You have had a lot of good advice in this thread but there is also some misunderstanding of terminology. Especially with regard to the MBR. The MBR is the first sector on the HD, LBA-0. It contains boot code, the disk signature and the partition table. The MBR is outside of any partition and is not involved in your issue. If you want more detail check Dan Goodell's article on the Boot Process but you can read this article after you have fixed your computer. This was written in WinXP days but applies to Win7 too.

Goodells.Net :: Understanding MultiBooting

Now to the 100 MB partition called System Reserved, the SRP. You will note it is labelled System, Active. System refers to it containing the Booting Files. These files are bootmgr and a Boot folder containing BCD, etc. Again, Win7 is NOT the Active partition when a SRP is present. With Vista, these booting files are contained within the Vista partition and there is no SRP.

Apart from holding the booting files the main function of the SRP is to allow encryption with BitLocker and if you don't have an Ultimate or Enterprise version of Win7 you can't run BitLocker. So if you don't want BitLocker you don't need a SRP. You can move the booting files into the Win7 partition and delete the SRP. This not only frees up a primary partition slot in the partition table but it makes backup and restore easier as you only have one partition rather than two partitions to worry about.

When installing Win7 to a HD that not partitioned (ie unallocated space) a 100 MB SRP will be created by default. If you install Win7 into a pre-created partition you will not get a SRP and the booting files will be in the Win7 partition.

There are many ways to remove a SRP and I have developed a few of my own but my favourite is the one mentioned by WackyT...

TeraByte Unlimited Knowledge Base

As you already have E: assigned you will have to use another drive letter in the process. You can use any drive letter, I use P: (P for partition). The tutorial is self-explanatory but ask questions if you have any concerns. When finished you will have 100 MB of unallocated space on the second HD. That's 100 out of 700,000 MB so it's not much but it can be removed if desired.

 

Justin, I just PMed you..I have been away for work and attempting to respond to your rep's emails and your PMs via my work laptop, tablet or smartphone ...none of which is optimal...regardless, I must say that the latest solution offered by Xotic one which I deem to be a respectable display of customer service and changes my feelings regarding the handling of this issue...I am awaiting instructions from your rep on the RMA process...and then will be upgrading to the 240GB Patriot....not everyone would have offered this as a solution..and although I'm not looking forward to being without my laptop, I do appreciate your diligent attention to my satisfaction as a customer....

Brian....this is spectacular education and I truly appreciate this advice..as you can see above, I have decided to RMA the system...however, I am grateful for you taking the time to personally address my issue in this thread...I will certainly be studying this for future reference and I'm sure others will have benefited from your response....thank you again!

 

NotebookNeophyte,

I'd be interested in seeing a screenshot of Disk Management after you get your computer back. Thanks.

 

Your windows 7 disk should do the job for you. Just boot from it and choose the "repair your computer" option from the start up screen (instead of INSTALL NOW).

EasyBCD is used to edit Boot Configuration Data.

There is a little confusion on this thread. Your problem is not the MBR, but the Boot Configuration Data that is the problem. Boot Configuration Data replaced the old boot.ini file that was used in Windows XP and Windows NT.

What is happening here is your BCD data says to boot from a specific harddrive device and placing the drive in the computer is confusing windows

This was easier to explain with boot.ini and ARC paths, but the case still applies here.

Here's a typical boot.ini arc path

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP" /fastdetect C:\ = "Microsoft Windows"

What this means is boot windows from DISK 0 partition 2

Windows gets the device number from the BIOS and looks for your startup info there.

When you add the other drive, you are changing the "number" of the drive.

the BCD information is similar (but more complex).

You can get easybcd here:

Download EasyBCD 2.1.2.156 Free - A handy tool for tweaking your system - Softpedia

 

I just moved the boot files from the E drive inmy desktop to the SSD (C:\) and here's what i had to do. Mark the partition as active in disk management. Then as others suggested, run either a windows repair disc or the install disc, choose system repair and repair the boot files. In my case, the repair disc detected the problem itself and fixed it. The MBR is no longer on a separate partition, but at the very least when i change my E:\ drive for one with more disk space, it won't prevent the system from booting.

 

tijo,

Please read my link which explains the MBR. The MBR is not in any partition. This thread has nothing to do with the MBR.

 

For those interested, here is a Win7 MBR...

 

Feeling a need to validate yourself, Brian?

You had me at hello.

 

Well, my bad, anyways, the rest of my post stands, i didn't have the files required to boot from my C:\ drive, they were on the 100MB system reserved partition created by windows when i installed it with the SSD + 2 HDDs in my desktop and i had to move them to C in order to be able to boot from there.