Starting from an old system with no bootable drive
Starting from an old system with no bootable drive
In 2020 I moved from Windows 7 to 10, but my legacy hard drive wasn’t formatted properly. That same year I visited a friend who works in IT and they upgraded it to an SSD. Whenever I restart or force shut down, the system shows no bootable device—Windows remains installed in legacy mode. I had this issue for more than three years; only ACHI mode worked. Eventually, I cloned the Windows installation and reinstalled today. The SSD is now in use with an MBR OS running Windows 10 x64 OEM. My system was originally from Windows 7, and it’s been about ten years since the OS was first installed. Today’s CPU is Intel Pentium B960, the video card is GT630M, and the motherboard matches a laptop configuration. Power supply details are available if you need them.
I've experienced some odd problems with cloning and BOOT when adjusting various configurations. The SATA mode impacts BOOT drives even on M.2 SSDs, so confirming no changes have occurred is key. Secure boot settings can lead to complications, as can CSM configurations. Intel RST typically requires SATA mode in RAID mode, similar for systems using Optane. Attempting to boot with incorrect settings—even in Windows 10—can damage the disk, which has already happened before and couldn't be fixed. Fortunately, the vital data was simple to transfer off the drive after reinstalling it on a different system with a fresh OS.