Discussing 2 window installations
Discussing 2 window installations
Long story-short: my main drive (with the OS, windows 10) is broken but still somewhat functional. I installed a new copy on windows 10 onto another drive and started setting it up while slowly backing up stuff from the broken drive. Anyway apparently when I installed the second copy of windows 10, it somehow got "tied" to the original install on the broken drive, so much so that when I go into the BIOS to choose the boot device, I can only choose the broken drive and not the other one with the second OS. It seems like the OS always has to boot from the broken drive and only after that first step it gives me the option to choose which windows 10 installation I want to boot into (it presents me with 2 windows 10 installs on 2 different volumes). This is a problem because I obviously want to get rid of the broken drive (because it's broken) after I backup all I can but looks like as soon as I disconnect it, the other windows install on the other drive will also stop working. I don't know why installing windows on a separate drive somehow tied it to the other windows install but this is annoying. I there any way I can keep the second windows install after I remove the broken drive?
The EFI section is likely on the damaged storage device. When you added another Windows installation to a different drive, it used that EFI section for startup instead of creating a fresh one on your new drive. You might attempt to rebuild that EFI section on your new drive or reinstall Windows on it without the broken drive, ensuring the new drive gets its own EFI section and avoids relying on the old one.
Yes. Make sure to disconnect every drive except the one you're installing. For a clean setup, restore them later.
There are several approaches possible. The main idea is to reduce the disk size on your Windows machine by creating a separate FAT32 partition of roughly 100MB free. After that, you can boot into the Windows USB drive and open a CMD window to generate the required EFI partition. For further details, refer to the video provided.
I'll check it later when the situation allows. I'm still working on saving what I can, as the SSD controller is failing and causing random crashes during heavy or prolonged use.
You may attempt the task inside Windows. However, if the commands fail, restart and use Windows install media. Press Shift+F10 to open DiskPart, then replace "select volume C" with the appropriate command. If your partition appears differently, adjust the letter accordingly. Proceed with the remaining steps on the site.
You're taking careful steps here. After shrinking the Windows volume and creating a new EFI partition, it seems the system still treats the Y volume as a standard partition rather than an EFI partition. Running `bcdboot` should work if you're sure the files are correctly formatted. Regarding your concern about disk 3: disconnecting it might be necessary to ensure the new EFI partition is recognized properly, especially since dual EFI setups can have compatibility issues. Just confirm the drive is powered off and unplugged before proceeding.