Windows fails to start after launching Linux PureOS on a different storage device
Windows fails to start after launching Linux PureOS on a different storage device
My computer was using Windows with an SSD drive. I transferred pureOS to a different HDD. Now when I disconnect the HDD and restart, it prompts me to "Reboot and select proper boot device." In BIOS I set the SSD as the boot option and it confirms the same message.
No devices were added to the SSD. All components were placed on the HDD. I’m unsure if the Master Boot Record has changed—it was the primary boot drive for the computer. The GRUB menu is being downloaded from the HDD. I can’t enable the SSD as MBR because loading Windows isn’t working.
It seems Windows once used a method of placing the boot loader on another disk than the operating system, which is quite typical. After installing Linux, the drive was formatted and the bootloader was removed, locking your Windows setup. Sometimes you can recover by booting from a Windows installation, then using Repair My Computer to fix the boot problem. Otherwise, you might have to start over.
There are various online guides explaining how to set up or recover a boot partition. You might need to reduce the size of your primary drive to enable UEFI startup, though there are many choices but they all demand some technical knowledge.