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Windows wont boot after fresh install


PC specs:
Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H
AMD A8 APU
kingston v300 SSD 120gb
WD HDD 1tb

I recently built this system for a family member as a low budget media/gaming pc. This was originally setup with windows 10 on the 1tb main drive, so I know everything works.
Now we decided to put an ssd in as a boot drive, and I cant seem to get it working.

I wasn't able to clone the drive due to inconsistent sector sizes between the drives.

I've finally completed the install on the drive after many failed attempts but when I try to boot from it the message reads "reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device"

Ive never had this much trouble with a drive. Anyone have any thoughts??

When you did the Windows 10 install onto the SSD did you have the 1tb HDD connected at the time? If you did, then the install program probably saw the boot files still on the HDD left over from the old Windows 10 and just updated those boot files instead of making new boot files on the SSD. Then when you select the SSD as the boot device in bios, there aren't any boot files on it to boot from.

If that is what happened, I would suggest doing another clean install onto the SSD, with the HDD disconnected this time, wiping all the partitions off the SSD using the custom install options and point the installation to the resulting unallocated space (which should be the entire SSD after you delete all the partitions).

After the clean install, when the SSD boots by itself - then you can reconnect the HDD - just make sure that bios remains set to boot from the SSD.

What tool did you use to clone drive?

Macrium Reflect Free would sort out all sector issues etc.

At this point I had only the ssd and the usb boot media installed during the installation process. I removed all other drives when attempting to boot from the sdd

The cloning tool I tried using was mini tool partition wizard. I'll try using macrium reflect

The cloning tool I tried using was mini tool partition wizard. I'll try using macrium reflect
First - make a Macrium Reflect Free Rescue USB/DVD. With only the SSD connected boot the computer from the Macrium Reflect rescue USB/DVD and select the Fix Windows startup utility under the restore menu and try that.

If what NavyLCDR suggested does not work, then if you decide to do another Windows Install, do not use the clone feature. Make a complete System Image, instead of the cloning to your new SSD. Then just copy your system image to your new SSD. Using Macrium Reflect. Hopefully NavyLCDR method will work and then you won't have too.

Ok, so I created the macrium boot disk. I booted into that, then I tried to fix the startup files without success.

Next i tried to clone the HDD. However when I select the SSD as the destination disk, it can't due to different sector sizes.
So now I tried using the disk image technique, with the same result.

Is there some way I can fix this? Can the sector size be causing this drive not to boot?


The HDD is 512 and the SSD is 4096

While changing settings I noticed that the bios setting for the boot order, lists the HDD as "Windows Boot Manager(drive name)".
The SSD however isn't listed this way, it just looks like a storage drive. How can I get the bios to see this as a boot drive?

Windows wont boot after fresh install