SSD boot problem

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DigiDog

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#173633 30-May-2015 13:53

Here's a weird thing. My Win7Pro desktop has been running happily for a couple of years, booting from a 64Gb SSD with a couple of internal HDs to store data. This morning it wouldn't boot from the SSD and kept flying into repair mode -- nothing would persuade it to boot.

Luckily I have a new 120Gb SSD which I was planning to clone my boot drive to next week. So I did a fresh install of Windows. That boots fine, albeit as a new PC. (I'd forgotten how annoying default Windows installation can be). So far so good.

When I boot from the new disk I can see my old SSD (labelled H: ) and all of the original files appear to be intact. I ran chkdsk on H: and it fixed some bad sectors. What I'd like to do is boot from the old (smaller) SSD, clone that across to the bigger SSD, then make that one my boot drive. But after disconnecting the new drive and changing the BIOS boot drive back to the smaller SSD, I still can't boot from that drive and the PC goes back into the endless loop of repair pages.

As I can see the 64Gb SSD, why can't I boot from it? Any help appreciated.

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#1314601 30-May-2015 14:14

SSDs fail. I had one do something similar a couple of years back, an early generation SSD. Throw it out.

Batman

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#1314602 30-May-2015 14:15

maybe the boot sector was corrupt??

DigiDog

51 posts

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#1314607 30-May-2015 14:28

timmmay: SSDs fail. I had one do something similar a couple of years back, an early generation SSD. Throw it out.

I'll happily chuck it but I would like to retrieve some the info first. As I can view the drive and all of the files on it, I presume that it's not entirely buggered.

What I'd really like to retrieve is my registery, user settings and so forth.

As an aside, using a clean install of Windows and Firefox is an eye opener, especially the sheer numbers of ads on the news sites. Jeez it's chronic!

timmmay

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#1314608 30-May-2015 14:33

Abandon the registry, it'll be full of junk. Restore the data files from your backups... you have backups right? It doesn't take that long to tweak things again.

This hosts file helps block ad server at the host file level, it's near the first thing I do on new computers. That and AdBlock plus. When I use my wifes computer (who won't let me do that) the amount of annoying flashing, moving, noisy ads on the internet is a real pita.

DigiDog

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#1314612 30-May-2015 14:48

I have full weekly backups of all my data. That's not a problem.

Most of my pgms run from the D: drive and they're all present and correct. But because they're not present in the new registry, nothing works. I reckon it'll be easier to move my old registry across to the new drive than reinstall dozens of big pgms. I'm hoping for an easy solution if possible.

freitasm

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Geekzone

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#1314621 30-May-2015 15:04

Reinstall the programs. There's no way the old registry will not bring garbage with it.

DigiDog

51 posts

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#1314651 30-May-2015 15:30

freitasm: Reinstall the programs. There's no way the old registry will not bring garbage with it.

But I like the garbage. In other words, my PC was running perfectly, but the C: drive became a little crowded.

Damn Adobe for forcing users to install Photoshop onto the C: drive!

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alexx

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Ultimate Geek

#1314702 30-May-2015 16:54

DigiDog: As I can see the 64Gb SSD, why can't I boot from it?

You can read it, but can you write to it?

DigiDog: Damn Adobe for forcing users to install Photoshop onto the C: drive!

Can you use an NTFS junction for this?
Been a while since I used one, but something like:

MKLINK /J junctionName targetDirectory

#include <standard.disclaimer>

timmmay

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#1314712 30-May-2015 17:01

In addition to your data backups you have an image or two of your operating system, right? Macrium reflect is free and works well. This is the reason I try not to keep a load of stuff on the C drive - it keeps my image files small.

andrewNZ

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#1314717 30-May-2015 17:14

I find the tone here a little unhelpful, you guys are usually better than this. :/

Because it appears the old SSD is partially working, I'd boot with the new install, then using something to backup/image the old drive to a new one and try booting the old install from the new disk.

timmmay

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#1314720 30-May-2015 17:19

Sorry, rum increases my sarcasm levels.

You can try, but I doubt it will work. Honestly a reinstall isn't that hard to get working how you want, then save an image once you have it in a good state, updates applied, basic apps installed.

DigiDog

51 posts

Master Geek

#1314767 30-May-2015 18:35

alexx:You can read it, but can you write to it?

Sorry for the delay... I've been running System Recovery... with no luck.

Yes I can write to the old SSD. I just copied a 1Mb filer across as a test.

DigiDog

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Master Geek

#1314770 30-May-2015 18:44

andrewNZ:Because it appears the old SSD is partially working, I'd boot with the new install, then using something to backup/image the old drive to a new one and try booting the old install from the new disk.

That's what I was hoping to do. The new SSD is booting fine and I can see (and write to) the old SSD. In fact the old SSD reports as healthy and is working in every respect, except when I nominate it as the boot drive. I've tried running bootrec.exe with the /FixMbr flag and while that exits with a success message, I suspect it's checking the new SSD rather than the old one. There's not much feedback when you're runnign from a CMD prompt.

I've downloaded Casper to clone the disk but I'm keeping that in reserve as it won't clone to the boot disk, which is what I need. If I can get the small SSD to boot, even once, I can clone from that to the new disk. That's my ideal scenario, but I'm running out of ideas.

And hey... thanks for all your help to date guys. I haven't taken any offense, yet. ;-)

DigiDog

51 posts

Master Geek

#1314773 30-May-2015 18:48

timmmay: Honestly a reinstall isn't that hard to get working how you want...

The reinstall isn't a problem, even if reinstalling Photoshop, Office and a few other graphics programmes would take a while. It's all of those little tweaks, plugins and utils that make me reluctant to start over from scratch.

I thought I was good at backups, with weekly and monthly schedules to two external HDs. Once I get this one fixed, I think I'm going to buy a backup SSD and clone the boot drive to that at least once a month. In retrospect.

timmmay

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#1314776 30-May-2015 18:50

No need to clone, just write image to HDD using macrium. Keep their boot environment on USB key, recovery to any disk takes minutes.

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