Is there a way to repair a system drive when it's secondary?

Discussion in 'Operating Systems' started by Danny_G13, May 4, 2021.

  1. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    Ok, messy title, but I'll try to explain:

    Long story short my windows 10 drive broke horribly, couldn't boot, and I eventually got it fresh installed on a different drive.

    Which can see the original system drive.

    It just can't boot with it any more - all the data is fine, and I tried EVERYTHING to save that install but it wasn't playing ball.

    But... now I'm wanting to see if that drive/install can be fixed 'from a distance' - is there any software that can look at another disk and salvage a windows install from it?

    Thanks!
     
  2. Astyanax

    Astyanax Ancient Guru

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    depends why it doesn't boot.
     
  3. Chrysalis

    Chrysalis Master Guru

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    If its the boot loader side, you could use something like macrium to clone the hidden boot partitions over. But anything else it will be not as simple.
     
  4. KissSh0t

    KissSh0t Ancient Guru

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    If you can see all your data, back up everything important, format the drive then do a fresh install?
     

  5. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    Do believe it's just a broken boot sequence yes. I have Macrium installed, wonderful app - but how do I do what you're suggesting?
     
  6. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    Yes, but was hoping not to have to. Have done that already, and all the data is safe there, but the original install had everything as I wanted it, so wanted to see if that was restorable.
     
  7. Chrysalis

    Chrysalis Master Guru

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    MAcrium have some great docs, the method I would do is as follows.

    First backup the original partitions, as you could well make things worse.
    Second backup the new partitions from the new install.
    Third restore the second backup over the partitions on the first install.

    You can do all this inside Macrium PE, so make a USB Macrium PE before you start.
     
  8. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    I might be missing something, but all you're doing is asking me to copy the image of the broken partition/boot drive to another drive. It'll just copy the breakage over too!

    No?
     
  9. alanm

    alanm Ancient Guru

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    DISM++ never failed me in such situations.
    https://www.chuyu.me/en/index.html.

    Via a bootable USB (ie, macrium or any win10 PE based flash drive), copy it to any of your drives.
    Unpack it, click on Dism++x64.exe and it will show you any installed windows OS's. Click on the OS, then select recovery tab > bootmgr repair and it will be running on next bootup.
     
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  10. HK-1

    HK-1 Master Guru

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    @alanm Yes I agree with you, and we still need to remember the Mouri Naruto too I think for its brilliant explanations :)
     

  11. Merlena

    Merlena Active Member

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    Do what @alanm said, and you'll have it sorted in no time!
     
  12. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    Only just saw this now. My new install is pretty happy now and mostly restored to what I had before, but tempted to try this!
     
  13. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    So I'm in windows, and DISM is saying the boot record will be written to the boot partition D: Will that override/ruin my existing C: drive's boot record or will that give me two healthy drives happily able to boot separately?
     
  14. alanm

    alanm Ancient Guru

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    Which "windows" are you in? Another windows installation on same PC? DISM will correct the boot problem of the windows you select. Usually the boot files are in an unmarked safe partition. So it will correct whatever issue preventing windows from booting up.. Good luck.
     
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  15. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    Hi alan, thanks for the reply.

    To be clear, it was originally on an SSD, and that install broke, so I installed Windows clean on a different SSD drive and that install now sees that original SSD Windows install happily as a secondary drive.
     

  16. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    Forged ahead anyway - this app repaired the install beautifully and I'm now back in that old Windows, with the new one happily sitting there too. This was a great recommendation, thanks Alan, wish I'd known about this app a week ago!
     
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  17. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    This app has already saved my backside once, but
    Hi Alan, or indeed anyone else, this app has really saved my backside already a couple of times.

    Thing is I made a slight pickle of one repair - I've ended up accidently creating a boot reserved partition as a H: drive rather than having those files happily on the boot drive itself. Now I have 5 drive letters in Windows rather than the 4 physical ones I actually have. How would I go about transferring those files safely to the boot drive and have windows still see it and boot from it?

    It's GPT which means it needs FAT32, and I've accidentally creating a new 100MB partition containing those boot files (efi etc). How do I fix that?

    Thanks!
     
  18. alanm

    alanm Ancient Guru

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    No need to transfer those files, leave them be. Sometimes windows does that, create oddly placed boot or recovery partitions, esp if you have more than one windows installation. Would recommend you remove the H drive letter as these partitions ideally should be hidden from within windows. Right click This PC > manage > disk management > change drive letters > remove (on H drive) and it will then be a hidden partition.
     
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  19. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    That works just fine too, thanks. I'm sort of scared to reboot now mind you...

    EDIT, reboot was just fine. Thank you again!
     
  20. Danny_G13

    Danny_G13 Master Guru

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    Ok I have ANOTHER issue if you can possibly spare a minute to...

    So I can't update windows for love nor money. Most of the updates give a download error, and when I try to restart the cumulative update and NET update that DID download it gets to 99% of configuring before telling me it couldn't complete.

    Looking into the windows update download errors (download error 0x80070663) (and download error 0x800f0922) there seems to be some notion online that my system reserved partition is too small, and needs to be 500MB.

    Now, I have two of these - one is on the C: drive with windows but is only 16MB and is called 'other', while the other is that H: drive one and is 600MB containing the boot loader etc, but windows update, I guess, isn't using that one.

    Now, I cannot increase the C: drive one's size - the option is not there on that drive/partition in Easeus Partition Master and while I've not used DiskPart, it's destructive, right?

    Orrrrrr... what? Do you see any obvious answer? I simply cannot update Windows using my present (admittedly slightly messy) configuration.

    Appreciate any advice.
     

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