Dribe data intact, but won't boot - save me a reinstall?

So 6 months ago I rejuvenated my lappie with an SSD used am adaptor and put it in the DVD slot. My boot menu used to offer me 2 boot options - the ssd and the hdd OSes - win 8 and 10 respectively (although I had deleted the OS directories from the mechanical drive). Yesterday, cleaning up the mechanical d drive, i deleted unused partitions (recovery, etc) and expanded the remaining partition to use the freed space with paragon. c: ssd wasn't touched.

Imagine my delight on getting "no bootable device -- please restart". I'm guessing the system MBR was on the mechanical drive and I deleted a partition I shouldn't have on the mech drive?

I tried booting from usb windows 8.1 iso and tried to do startup repair - this failed with no further info

I tried refresh the pc - got "the drive where windows is installed is locked" - it isn't bitlock encrypted.

Reset failed "a required drive partition is missing"

bootrec /fixboot and /fixmbr completed successfully

chkdsk /f/x/r completed - there was a message at the end that I didn't record

All the data is on the c: ssd - it just wont boot.

Also tried a usb linux distro for repairing windows boot issues - didn't work. BIOS is set for UEFI. Tried the alternative - did not go well.

It will take me 3-4 days to verify I've backed up data, reinstall OS and reinstall a couple of hundred music software programs. Also the iLok protection for these means that I'll lose the license for many progs when I wipe the SSD. I can ask for another license, but it's at the seller's discretion.

My google fu has let me down - the rest of my week rests in your hands

jhud

Have you a need for windows 8 and is this on you old hard drive. Is the windows 10 on ssd and would you be happy with just windows 10 no dual boot

jhud

jhud wrote: »

Have you a need for windows 8 and is this on you old hard drive. Is the windows 10 on ssd and would you be happy with just windows 10 no dual boot

Thanks for answering

Win 10 is on old hdd and 8 is on new ssd - only used 8 because my audio interface at the time didnt have drivers for 10 an was unstable. Not a consideration any more as I have a shiny new win 10 compatible device. Don't have any need dual for boot at all - just need the ssd wirh 8.1 to be bootable, that's the only OS on the pooter. Second mech hhd drive was the original boot drive until i added the ssd, but now it is is only for data.

smuggler.ie

Give us current layout of partitions on both disks screenshot
Sounds like you have wiped EFI partition

You are spot on. None of the googling for the symptoms told me the underlying cause, but you hit the nail on the head. Took all of 2 minutes to rebuild and repopulate the efi partition with diskpart and bcdboot, and I'm back in business.

You saved me many hours of work - thank you!

smuggler.ie

Glad it helped you.

Lets say it was educated guess...


Damn , should have played lotto or something