Yes, you can create a separate partition for the Win 10 install media on the same hard drive.
Yes, you can create a separate partition for the Win 10 install media on the same hard drive.
That's why I avoid using any drive that doubles as an MP3 player for starting up... You never really know if it will function... Of course, you turned on USB boot in the BIOS, didn't you? I'm not trying to act like I understand everything, just that this has happened before.
With EFI set to legacy, you can generally load any program, though it will be quite limited. If not, you need an EFI-based system or a more suitable alternative. Most recent Windows installers are designed for EFI, but it's hard to say for sure without checking your specific setup.
Hello, thank you for your message. I understand I have two different locations to stay at, and currently my PC is at my secondary home where I’ll only be there on weekends for the next few weeks. That means I can’t make any changes until tomorrow or Saturday. When I left, I tried an update and restart, but I didn’t realize my remote access software needs to be logged in to start. So it restarted again, I left, and it hasn’t been connected yet. Windows starts up normally, but there are some odd issues. First, the M.2 SSD isn’t showing up in the boot sequence unless it’s set to UEFI and not Legacy mode. My board doesn’t have a UEFI+Legacy option, but now Windows only boots if the laptop HDD is connected and listed above the SSD in the order. Both drives have Windows 20H2 installed. It boots into the HDD first, but the HDD’s W10 sees two separate installations—one on itself and one on the SSD. I changed the default to Partition 5 and set the auto-select timer to five seconds. The HDD has four partitions: Windows 10, recovery, plus two for the Windows 10 Installer (one is a bootable ISO virtual disk, the other is a full partition with the ISO unpacked). The SSD has just one partition, W10 Home, occupying most of the space except for some overprovisioning. Changing the HDD’s position or unplugging it causes a “No Bootable Media Found” error, and trying to plug it back in doesn’t fix it—pressing any key just repeats the same message. This seems like a generic motherboard boot problem. I’m unsure if I tried it in both positions in the boot order, but this isn’t normal. My boot times have increased from about 2 seconds to around 15 seconds because it appears the motherboard isn’t recognizing the SSD as containing bootable files, yet Windows can still boot from another drive and asks which one to use. After figuring out which partition is which, I usually pick 5 before auto-select. I don’t understand why it doesn’t try to boot from the HDD when it’s connected and second in the order. From what I know about boot settings, this shouldn’t happen.
In reality, the UEFI setting seems to be UEFI+Legacy rather than a strict UEFI configuration. You can move drive options in MSI BIOS/UEFI, selecting from various types such as UEFI drives, legacy drives, USB drives, Ethernet-based boot options, and even floppy drives. There are around 12 different categories to organize in UEFI, compared to about 5 in Legacy. I’m not sure if the HDD shows up under UEFI or Legacy, but I recall M.2 devices only appear as UEFI hard drives. I always keep the UEFI and Legacy USB drives at positions one and two in my boot sequence, as taught in my IT class. Basically: #3 HDD, #4 M.2 works, but boots into the HDD first then asks to switch to a partition on the SSD. #3 M.2 with #4 HDD fails to start, and #3 M.2 without a connected HDD also fails to boot.