Windows Bootloader On Different Drive... Win10/Win11.

[DCRX2020]

Hey all, I had Windows 11 on my main drive (bad mistake,) and I installed Windows 10 on a separate drive, but somehow the bootloader was linked to the Windows 11 drive so that when I started my PC, it would ask me which OS to start. I no longer use the W11 drive, but now the W10 drive won't start without the W11 drive! I even looked in my bios, and it reads the bios for W10 on the W11 drive.

 

Is there a way I can make a new bootloader for the W10 drive? I feel like I did something like this long ago, and totally don't remember how to do it, Thanks.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Can't this be done in msconfig (type in start menu) ... and the boot tab?

 

[DCRX2020]

On 30/11/2021 at 22:41, Jim K said:

Can't this be done in msconfig (type in start menu) ... and the boot tab?

 

I tried that, and it still thinks that the C drive is the original Windows 11 drive. If I set my PC to boot from the W10 drive, it simply would not boot up, which is strange because I'm pretty sure I've did that before. Windows 11 messed everything up for me.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

...and if you disconnect the Windows 11 drive...I'm assuming it doesn't boot?

[rmorris003]

Try booting the Windows disc and do a start up repair with only the Windows 10 drive.

[DCRX2020]

On 01/12/2021 at 00:05, rmorris003 said:

Try booting the Windows disc and do a start up repair with only the Windows 10 drive.

I will actually try this, this might be the trick. Thanks! I will report back.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

instructions are for 7 but should still work in 10/11

 

https://www.mysysadmintips.com/windows/clients/236-move-windows-7-bootloader-to-another-disk

 

this tutorial uses EasyBCD which I've used in the past with good success for this and other things

 

edit: upon looking deeper and at other sites it seems GPT installs throw a wrench into things since it does extra partitions to control this so if you get an error then unfortunately the easiest fix may just be pull all drives except the primary and reformat/reinstall so it gets the partitions properly placed.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

On 30/11/2021 at 23:05, rmorris003 said:

Try booting the Windows disc and do a start up repair with only the Windows 10 drive.

this is a good thought too, hopefully that works but I've had mixed results with this method in the past too

[DCRX2020]

Okay, so I tried startup repair, it won't work because there's no bootloader on my Windows 10 drive since it was linked to the 11 drive. I can't use easybcd because it doesn't work with EFI, and I couldn't create the partition in diskpart with the Windows installation disk because of some error. There has to be some way I can do this while on Windows. It says the bootloader is on the C drive, but it thinks the C drive is the Windows 11 drive, even though on my Windows 10 installation, the drive letter is C:, it's like it's tricking it into thinking the old drive is C as well when I bootup.

 

Even if I search for this problem, it's too specific and brings up way too many different results. I am hoping someone here has a solution. I blame Windows 11 on this. I can't believe it just installed it's own bootloader on my rig. Now I'm SOL till I find a way out. I can't take out the Windows 11 drive till I fixed this bootloader!

[Bruinator]

On 01/12/2021 at 13:14, Brandon H said:

instructions are for 7 but should still work in 10/11

 

https://www.mysysadmintips.com/windows/clients/236-move-windows-7-bootloader-to-another-disk

 

this tutorial uses EasyBCD which I've used in the past with good success for this and other things

 

edit: upon looking deeper and at other sites it seems GPT installs throw a wrench into things since it does extra partitions to control this so if you get an error then unfortunately the easiest fix may just be pull all drives except the primary and reformat/reinstall so it gets the partitions properly placed.

BH is right. This is a very good program for such a thing u want to do.