1 Topic by Modify_inc

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Topic: Can you flagged an entire drive as Boot?

I ask because I noticed in Windows when running diskpart, detail disk, the flag Boot Drive is enabled (Boot Drive: Yes).  Well, I cloned that HDD to a SSD and the SSD will not boot for anything. I have tried multiple things for the past two days and followed many guides to no avail. It is always the same error message verbatim: Operating System Not Found!

I noticed that when I ran diskpart, detail disk, on the SSD, the flag Boot Drive is not Enabled (Boot Drive: No). I'm assuming this is the culprit or part of it. Shouldn't it say Boot Drive: Yes, as did my original HDD which had no issues booting?

I tried to flag the drive as Boot in GParted Live, but it seems to only flag partitions, not the entire drive as Windows does.
What could be the issue or is there something else I could be missing?

Thank you!

2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Can you flagged an entire drive as Boot?

For Windows to boot it requires a few things.  If you cloned the partition and marked the partition as boot, I suspect that the missing piece is that the boot code has not been written to the initial unallocated sectors of the drive.  This can be done by booting from Windows media and restoring the boot code.

See the GParted FAQ for tips on restoring the boot code.

Also to avoid confusion between the cloned partition and the original, it is advisable to either remove the original from the computer, or else change the UUID of one of the partitions.  Please note that the UUID is used by Windows Licensing scheme.

3 Reply by Modify_inc

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Re: Can you flagged an entire drive as Boot?

gedakc wrote:

For Windows to boot it requires a few things.  If you cloned the partition and marked the partition as boot, I suspect that the missing piece is that the boot code has not been written to the initial unallocated sectors of the drive.  This can be done by booting from Windows media and restoring the boot code.

See the GParted FAQ for tips on restoring the boot code.

Also to avoid confusion between the cloned partition and the original, it is advisable to either remove the original from the computer, or else change the UUID of one of the partitions.  Please note that the UUID is used by Windows Licensing scheme.

thank you for the reply!

The drive is in a laptop and this laptop can only interface one drive, so no issue of ever having the clone drive and the original drive as boot drives in the same computer.

I have already used the common boot repair options for the past two days with no success.

There are three things I find unique about this issue that seem to NEVER change no matter what I do to this drive:

1. The error message after booting with the SSD is always "Operating System not found"

2. The "Boot Drive" flag in diskpart is always set to No.

3. Running the startup repair disc while at the System Recovery window where it automatically scans for Windows Installations; it always comes up empty. No OS is display, so I can't select one to work with. Yet, it always reports "Windows found problems with your computer startup options. Do you want to apply repairs and restart your PC." and thus fails with "Failed to save startup options." when I click Yes to apply the repairs.

The details of the fix show that it would have tried to repair the following:

Name: {bootmgr}
Identifier: {9DEA862C-5CDD-4E70-ACC1-F32B344D4795}

The following startup options will be added:
Name: Windows 7 Home Premium (recovered)
Path: Windows
Windows Device: Partition=C: (103066 MB)

Name: Windows Recovery Environment (recovered)
Path: Recovery\3eb00daf-6a9e-11e0-879c-002454bb656f\Winre.wim
Windows Device: Partition=C: (103066 MB)

Copy of the current boot configuration data will be saved as C:\Boot\BCD.Backup.0001

When I run bootrec /rebuildbcd, it finds [1] D:\Windows installation, but it fails with this error: "The requested system device cannot be found."

I'm confident most, if not all, of these errors are a direct result of the Recovery Options not detecting my OS initially when it scans automatically for the presence of any Windows Installations. Why would it not see it though if /rebuildbcd is able to detect one?

I find it odd but somewhat significant that these above patterns of events never change.

Do I need to load a driver for my OCZ Vertex 4 SSD while in the System Recovery Options for my OS to be detected?
Is there something in the BIOS of this Samsung NP-RV510 laptop that could make my SSD incompatible as a boot drive?

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Can you flagged an entire drive as Boot?

If I recall correctly, when Windows is activated on a computer the process involves using details from the computer, such as the hard drive.  If the hard drive is changed to a different model it is possible that the Windows license would be adversely affected.  The reason I mention this is due to the following message:

Modify_Inc wrote:

"The requested system device cannot be found."

This makes me think that it is trying to locate the old hard drive, fails to find it, and then refuses to save the change.

You might try posting this issue in a Windows specific forum where they may have more knowledge of these types of issues.

It is also possible that the SSD uses a different physical sector size than the old HDD used.  This could cause issues with the result of the clone process.