I made a mistake.
I made a mistake.
I was assembling a boot drive for a collection of components that were en route. I had a 120GB SSD available that I intended to use for the upcoming system. I installed it into my current machine and used a Windows 10 boot USB to set up Windows there. Here’s where things went wrong. I failed to disconnect the existing 250GB boot drive inside the machine. Now, when I power it on, it functions as a dual-boot setup. I can switch between the fresh installation on the 120GB or run the original system on the 250GB. Fortunately, I didn’t lose any data. However, removing the new 120GB drive prevents the old installation from launching. I encounter a black screen with the prompt to "insert boot media and press any key." I attempted using the USB stick to repair Windows but it didn’t help. I don’t want to perform a clean install on my old drive. I prefer to maintain everything as it is. Any suggestions? TIA
Open the BIOS settings and choose the 250 boot option to test if it restores you to the desktop.
I attempted both options. When I enter BIOS, the only drive listed is the 250, positioned first, and I still get the insert boot media. C2dan88 followed your instructions carefully, even going through the more detailed steps, but it didn’t work as expected. After reinstalling the 120 drive, the PC started up immediately and asked which Windows version to boot—either Windows 10 Volume 1 or Volume 4. Thanks to both of you for your assistance.