[M_Six]

Ok, I'm not a newb to Windows but this one has me stumped. Wifey's Win7 box was running out of space on her C: drive, which was a 128GB SSD. I bought a 500GB SSD and cloned it over. The clone appeared to work fine. But the new SSD won't boot. I get the "No boot device detected" warning. This happened, of course, because it's Wifey's PC. Just the way my luck rolls.

In any case, I booted from the Win7 DVD and ran repair and it went fine. It then booted into Windows normally. I'm thinking, cool, I'm saved.

But...it will only boot if the DVD is set as a boot device and the Win7 DVD is in the drive. I get the "Press anykey to boot from DVD" prompt and let it time out, then it boots into Windows 7 as normal. If I try booting without the DVD, I get the "No boot device found" message. I've tried removing the DVD player from the boot device list and I get the same warning. If I set the SSD as the primary boot device and the DVD as the secondary and insert the DVD, it goes right to the DVD and the "Press any key" message. Again, letting that time out allows it to boot to Win 7 off the SSD as normal.

I've never seen this before. I can't figure out why it won't boot from the SSD until it goes through the DVD boot spiel. Obviously the SSD is bootable, but the BIOS doesn't let it boot until the DVD boot prompt times out.

Any ideas?

[detroitm2]

Sounds like you didnt clone over the boot partition. I'll admit its been a long time since I've messed with windows, but that would be the first thing I'd check.

[Banana Hammock]

Does BIOS recognize the SSD when you're in it?

Did you go from an SATA to NVMe SSD?

[JohnnyCanuck]

Might be UEFI boot restriction. Check the BIOS to see if Secure Boot is enabled (or whatever the equivalent is called).

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by laszlof

Sounds like you didnt clone over the boot partition. I'll admit its been a long time since I've messed with windows, but that would be the first thing I'd check.

As far as I can tell, the entire drive cloned accurately. The two drives look identical except for the larger Windows partition on the new drive.

Originally Posted by Hurricane Beefaroni

Does BIOS recognize the SSD when you're in it?

Yes, the BIOS sees the new SSD

Did you go from an SATA to NVMe SSD?

No. SATA SSD to SATA SSD.

Originally Posted by JohnnyCanuck

Might be UEFI boot restriction. Check the BIOS to see if Secure Boot is enabled (or whatever the equivalent is called).

This is an older Dell. No UEFI or Secure Boot.

I'm going to try fixmbr and that whole string of commands. The "rescue" USB I made before cloning has a wizard that supposedly did all that, but I'm not sure the fixmbr part completed properly.

Probably time for a new PC for Wifey anyway, but she's so against buying new things when the old things still work. She's still driving her 2006 Honda Civic despite my pleas for her to get something new.

[Banana Hammock]

When you managed to boot into Windows, was there a System reserved partition that is disabled on the drive? If so, it needs to be active.

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Hurricane Beefaroni

When you managed to boot into Windows, was there a System reserved partition that is disabled on the drive? If so, it needs to be active.

There is no System reserved partition. There wasn't on the old SSD either. Just a healthy NTFS partition.

I think at this point I'm going to leave it as is since it does boot up with the DVD in it. The "Press any key" delay is minor and delays booting into Windows 7 by only a few seconds. Wifey can live with that until I can get her a new PC. This one is at least 6 or 7 years old anyway.

As an odd side note, I tried replacing the new SSD with the older one that was working fine and now it won't boot into Windows 7 without the DVD in the drive either. Very odd since that older SSD has been working fine for ages. Now I'm wondering if there isn't a BIOS issue. It's still the original firmware.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice. Just another weird Windows thing, I guess.

[Banana Hammock]

Originally Posted by M_Six

There is no System reserved partition. There wasn't on the old SSD either. Just a healthy NTFS partition.

I think at this point I'm going to leave it as is since it does boot up with the DVD in it. The "Press any key" delay is minor and delays booting into Windows 7 by only a few seconds. Wifey can live with that until I can get her a new PC. This one is at least 6 or 7 years old anyway.

As an odd side note, I tried replacing the new SSD with the older one that was working fine and now it won't boot into Windows 7 without the DVD in the drive either. Very odd since that older SSD has been working fine for ages. Now I'm wondering if there isn't a BIOS issue. It's still the original firmware.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice. Just another weird Windows thing, I guess.

One last Hail Mary before giving up? Launch command prompt as Administrator and enter these commands one at a time

bootrec.exe

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

bootrec.exe /fixboot

bootrec.exe /scanos

bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by Hurricane Beefaroni

One last Hail Mary before giving up? Launch command prompt as Administrator and enter these commands one at a time

bootrec.exe

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

bootrec.exe /fixboot

bootrec.exe /scanos

bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

I've tried all those except for the /scanos switch. All completed successfully, but it still won't boot without the DVD in the drive.

[detroitm2]

you might need to wipe the BCD first. Try this:

1) Boot with Win 7 DVD.
2) Click "Repair your computer"
3) Choose "Command Prompt" option in System Recovery Options menu
4) run the following commands:

bcdedit /export c:\bcd_backup
ren C:\boot\bcd C:\boot\bcd.old
bootrec /rebuildbcd

[1and1]

could be as simple as the boot order in BIOS...

Surely you've checked that already tho

[detroitm2]

Originally Posted by 1and1

could be as simple as the boot order in BIOS...

Surely you've checked that already tho

Good point. Swapping the drive out might have completely removed it from the boot order, depending on the BIOS.

[msjt]

Try changing the SATA operation in the BIOS.

[M_Six]

I did set the boot order in the BIOS. If the new SSD is the only boot device, the boot fails. If I set the DVD player also as a boot device and leave the DVD in there, it boots to Windows 7. The only SATA operation option is to enable or disable it. Like I said, it's an old BIOS. Once I get a new PC for Wifey, I may mess around with the BIOS firmware and so on. But since it's booting now and is usable, I'm going to go with it. I'm just glad it boots at all at this point.

[Dang3r]

Had you considered the option that the SSD is broken?
Same symptoms like mine old HDD gave up her life, only bootable through WIN DVD, no repair, formatting or BIOS options had helped but a brand new HDD.
If you're having maybe another one for final testing...?

[M_Six]

More weirdness. This morning it stopped booting into Windows. It booted directly to Windows setup on the DVD without even showing the "Press any key to boot from DVD." It did this repeatedly. I just shut it down and brought it into work to try a few more things before giving up and reloading from scratch.

I got to the office and hooked up all the peripherals and plugged it in. With no DVD in the drive, it booted right to Windows 7 on the new SSD like nothing had ever been wrong. it just started working normally for no apparent reason. I'm thinking this won't last long either. I suspect a dying motherboard with possibly a resistor on its way out. It's back home now and working fine, but we'll see how long that lasts.

[1and1]

Soooooo.......

Whatchya getting as the replacement?

[M_Six]

Dunno. Probably a Dell Optiplex 7050. I just bought the micro version a few weeks ago and it's a sweet machine with a 500GB M.2 drive and a 500GB SSD, plus 16GB RAM. Boots to login in about 12 seconds. Tiny thing, too. But Wifey likes a DVD drive, so I may go with the tower version for her. She doesn't need high end graphics and prefers smaller, square-ish monitors, so onboard video is fine.