Installation :: How To Create Multiple Bootable Sata SSDs
Sep 1, 2015
I am building a new PC with no internal storage. I am installing a 2.5" SATA dock in one 3.5" bay and one 3.5" SATA dock in a second 5.25" bay.
My intention is to have one SSD for my work PC on Windows 10, one SSD for my son for his gaming on Windows 7 (some of his games are not Win 10 compatible yet), and perhaps a third SSD for playing around with Linux installs, etc.
The 3.5" dock will have a 1TB HDD for backup.
From what I have read, since these drives will not technically be external. (plugged into the SATA on the mainboard through the dock, and not via USB or e-sata.), that their creation and use could be problematic if I use the UEFI boot system, or secure boot for that matter.
So.... I am looking for a methodology which I should use to setup these boot SSDs which will give me the least problems and management issues.
A side related question. I have a boot SSD with Win 7 home premium that is eligible for Win 10 upgrade. It currently resides in my Dell Alienware x-51 R1 system, but I want to move it to the new system as the drive my son will be using.
Will there be any issues in moving the drive to a new system architecture?If/when he can upgrade to Win 10, will there be any issues with that since the architecture has changed from the system of origin?Do I need to backup/reformat/restore the drive in order to get it to boot properly in the above mentioned docking bay system?Since only one drive could be used at any one time. In your opinion, do you think I need multiple Windows Licenses?
Tried looking this up online, but couldn't find any specific information. I'm running on Windows 10 Home, and I have a Windows 10 ISO I want to put in a flash drive so it's bootable. How do I do this?
I am going to be installing an ssd into my laptop in the coming days and I am planning on using the windows 10 set up program to create a boot-able usb for installation. My laptop came with Windows 8 pre-installed and I updated it to Windows 10. If I do a fresh install to the ssd, will Windows recognise my PC and activate itself?
I have been trying to create a USB installation drive. I have the Windows10 .iso image. I have created a recovery USB drive but it doesn't allow me to access the image just the advanced options. I want to be able to do a clean install of Windows 10. So:I want to boot to the USB stick
I want to be able to format my drives.I want to be able to install a clean copy of Window 10.I have searched and searched online but can't seem to find a solution.
Since windows 10 has been launched and it has already been downloaded on my PC and installed. I wanted to know how to create a boot-able DVD so that I can also install it later, you know like doing a completely fresh installation and having the windows staying activated. Cuz windows was upgraded to 10 from 8.1 and Microsoft didn't gave me any key, so if I install it again on the same device will it remain activated?
Had tried to update the BIOS on my son's Alienware Aurora R4 so that we could install an upgraded graphics card (980 Ti).
Used the Dell Support site - and was upgrading from Bios 7 to Bios 9 - would eventually go up to current version 11 before swapping GPU.
Followed all the steps on the Dell site - but afterwards - it acts like my hard drive has died (doubting this - have fairly new Samsung 512GB SSD as the only hard drive).
Computer boots into Bios now - but says "inaccessible boot device". My son had done the update from Windows 8 that came on the machine to Windows 10 - but apparently did not create a boot disk or USB drive.
Can I create a "generic" bootable USB on another computer - WITHOUT REINSTALLING WINDOWS? I do not want to lose info/settings on his machine if at all possible.
Waiting on Alienware Tech support to respond - machine is about 2.5 years old and out of warranty
I bought Windows 10 for my new build. I didn't put a DVD drive in the computer because I knew I could boot from USB. How do I create a bootable USB drive with the Windows 10 CD? (I have a new USB with 16 gbs of storage)
I have a Surface Pro 4 that I want to set up a Dual Boot on. I normally wouldn't have too much of an issue resolving this on my own, but due to the Surface Pro 4 not supporting Legacy flash drives, my standard way (Booting into a MBR Flash Drive w/ an Offline OS on it and doing the defrag/moving the files to the beginning of the drive) of solving this issue has left me baffled. I've attempted downloading Rufus and utilizing a MBR ISO (Which failed, since it didn't have the EFI boot sector on it), going back and forth amongst various methods of removing secure boot (which was a doozy at first, after having to go through recovering my BitLocker key) in order to boot from legacy, all to no avail.
Basically, I want to take my SSD, and move all the files to the beginning, which I can't do in Windows due to system files being in use (Ironically, a large portion being near the end of the drive). All I am looking for is a method to create a bootable UEFI flash drive that I can use to defrag/do this from. I've dug a little bit around on Linux and didn't find anything that seemed to be able to do it, as most options seemed only relevant to Windows PCs. Is there any options available to do this? Or would formatting and reinstalling it be the only option?
I've always wondered this, since people have told me that you can't copy the files from an .iso and do a clean install of windows, since it is not "Bootable", but I've actually done it many times. Maybe I just don't understand what they mean by bootable?
My understanding is that it means the USB drive can be chosen in the Bios or in the boot menu to be booted from, which is what you have to do to do a clean install of windows, which I have done many times by just extracting the files from the ISO with daemon tools and copying them to a USB.
To clarify, I am not "Upgrading" by running the USB while logged into windows, I am going into the bios and selecting the USB drive to boot too, and it automatically starts the windows installation, where I can then format the drive and install windows to it. Am I not really making the USB bootable?
When I download my free version of Windows 10, I want to install it to my 128gb SATA drive which is now labeled Drive S, and keep my current installation of Win 7 Ultimate on drive C in case I want to revert back to Win 7.
How do I install Win 10 on my SATA drive, change it to become the bootable drive, and retain Win 7 on drive C? Also, if I decide to revert back to Win 7, what process do I go through to revert back to the old Drive C?
I recently had my PlayStation 3 system corrupt, and I had two options, to delete all of my data and start new, or go trough a long process to restore my data.
To restore my data, I need to change my computer to the SATA Controller mode IDE, but I can not find it in the system BIOS. The closet thing I can find is switching between AHCI and ATA, but I need IDE mode.
I recently used a 16GB USB flash drive to create an installer for a new Linux distro. I noticed that the created partition is 8GB and the rest 8GB is unused. I want to create a second NTFS partition so I can use the USB as a recording medium for my PVR, but Disk Management doesn't give me this option. I then used MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition, which did create the partition but warned that it won't be recognized by Windows as it normally sees only the first partition on a USB Flash drive. I even went back to Disk Management and assigned a drive letter to the second partition, but in Explorer I see only the EFI partition (first, drive is formatted in GPT mode) with that drive letter. Is there any workaround? Of course I could just format the whole drive as NTFS, but I wouldn't like to do so until I don't need the installer anymore.
I have downloaded all ISO images of Windows 10 through Media Creation Tool. Each ISO image is consisted on both versions (x86 and x64) of respective windows.
Now, I want to convert all Windows 10 ISO images in a single bootable USB in a way which will give me the list of selection of installation windows 10 at the time of installation.
My gamer Laptop (ASUS G55VW ROG) is now upgrated from Windows 7 SP1. It went smooth and without errors.Before fiddle around too much I want to make a bootable USB-key with Windows 10 installaion to make a clean install possible if I mess windows up so it can't boot.But how do I make this bootable USB-key? I know I can "reset" the PC from "settings", but that only works if it can boot .I had the understanding, that it would be possible to make a DVD or an USB-pen to make a clean install? And what about cd-key when cleaninstalling from that bootdevice?
I bought two new SSDs to be used in a RAID 0 configuration with a Dell 9020 under Windows 10.
Before the drives I arrived I configured two old HDDs in RAID 0 and installed Windows 10 as a clean install. This worked perfectly.
Once the new SSDs arrived I configured these in RAID 0 and started a clean install. Windows correctly identified the disk with the correct capacity and the install completed without issue.
When the computer restarts I got a "A disk read error occurred" error.
If I boot from the installation media to a command prompt I can see that the Windows files have been correctly installed to the C drive of the RAID 0 array.
I also tried loading the RAID drive during Windows install but this made no difference, and if it was the driver causing the issue it would not have worked with my old HDDs.
If I open diskpart I see that the drive is not marked as boot, which it is when I check these details on the old HDDs in RAID0.
I would like to do a clean install I have downloaded windows10 .iso free version file from creation tool to DVD is the file bootable. If not how do I make a bootable DVD or USB from the downloaded.
My computer has been upgraded to Windows 10 and activated. I have a non-bootable DVD Windows 10 ISO. Is it possible to do a clean install with that non-bootable DVD disk? Any alternative to do a clean install?
Heard imgburn can create a bootable DVD ISO, but after downloading the software then found it is infected, and decided not to install it.
I got myself a new 120GB SSD for the jump to Windows 10. I install the OS without problems from a DVD disk, boot up and begin to install stuff as steam, spotify and GeForce experience.
I remove the installation disk from my DVD reader and reboot. After the BIOS screen I get a message that claims there are no bootable media.
With the installation disk in the DVD reader everything works fine, I get an option to boot the installation even though the DVD is nr 2 in boot order after my sole storage unit.
I have tried to use all those bootrec commands to restore, repair or create a new bootmgr and so on. No installations of Windows can be found either. Been doing this for 6 hours now. I have reinstalled windows 10, 8 and 7. All with the same problem.
I plugged in one of my older 60GB SSDs and successfully installed Windows 10 on it. No sign of any boot problems. Booted without the installation disc. Same SATA connection on the motherboard. No changes in boot order.
So my thoughts about this right now, is it possible my new SSD have a defect from the beginning? Something in the hardware/hardware controller?
And yes I have searched around and Everyone seems to get it working with bootrec commands. I don't...
It's possible you might have the contents of the ISO but not the actual ISO image itself on HDD.It's still possible to create a bootable USB using purely MANUAL commands for this example assume Disk nr is 7 and the USB stick is on drive H. The files from the ISO are in say folder WINDVD on drive E here's what to do.
1) open CMD as administrator
2) DISKPART
3) LIST DISK
4) SELECT DISK 7 (remember our example above)
5) CLEAN
6) CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
7) ACTIVE
8) FORMAT FS=NTFS QUICK
9) EXIT (don't close the cmd prompt though)
10) CD E:WINDVDBOOT (again from example contents of ISO are on drive E)
11) BOOTSECT /NT60 H:
12) After 11) finishes - takes 1 sec approx. copy the entire contents of directory WINDVD to the USB stick as is - copy contents in same folder layout as on the disk - don't have WINDVD as the high level - copy CONTENTS so ist folder on USB stick will be BOOT.
I have recently purchased a new laptop, one that houses a rather small SSD. As well, it comes with Win 8.1 and I am quite eager to migrate to Win 10 as soon as I can (or at least as soon as the first Service Pack is released). A new SSD has been purchased and is intended to be installed right away.
From what I gather on the forums, would the following be the best way to upgrade to Win 10 on my new SSD?:
1. Launch the brand new laptop and immediately begin cloning the old SSD onto the new SSD using Win 8.1. 2. Install the new SSD, which now has Win 8.1. 3. Upgrade to Win 10 with the new SSD.
I have this Windows 7 PC with two drives, drive 0: SSD has current windows and drive 1: 1TB HDD for storage. I'm planning to do a clean install of windows 10 by formatting the ssd drive and installing windows there. Now my question is: do I have to format my hdd storage drive for a clean install? it contains general files, music, pictures, videos and a Steam folder of some games or will it cause issues with windows 10?, and what good can come from formatting it if there's any.
I want to purchase a copy of Windows 10 Pro. I currently own Windows 7 Ultimate. I do not want to lose Windows 7 Ultimate because I have games and other files that I am concerned will be incompatible with Windows 10 in the same way that they are incompatible with Windows 8.
My system specs: Intel Core i7-4790K Asus ROG Maximus VII HERO Club3D R9 290 Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD Western Digital Black 1TB WD1003FZEX Asus DRW-24B1ST DVD-RW G.Skill Trident X DDR3-1600 CL7
The 840 EVO has Windows 7 Ultimate installed on it. There are many basic programs installed to this drive, such as Microsoft Office, my Daemon Tools, Fraps, and other "mission-critical" things that I want to access quickly and reliably.
My mass storage drive is the Western Digital Black drive. All my games are stored there, as Steam has a folder it reads most of its games from. A few other large programs are stored there. It only has one partition.
What I've been thinking of doing is when Windows 10 comes out, I want to grab a 256GB Samsung SM951 M.2 drive for my Maximus VII Hero and install Windows 10 onto that. I'm hoping that way, I can access my games via either Windows 7 or Windows 10, so that if there's compatibility issues, I can boot to either Windows 7 or Windows 10 and not have to worry about being able to play my games. I don't really want to do the free upgrade path because I'm concerned that it will replace Windows 7. I don't want that.
I'm also wondering if I can still run the games on the WD Black from Windows 10 using Steam launching from the SM951, as I currently do with Windows 7 on the 840 EVO.
I'm pretty certain that I won't be able to access Microsoft Office, which is on the 840 EVO imbedded into Windows 7's Program files. Or will I?
I upgraded from windows 7 to 10 about 2 weeks ago, absolutely no issues, i was happy with everything.
My computer had froze and i forced a shut down via power button. Upon starting again i was greeted with "no operating system found"
I fixed that problem now im greeted with a black screen with something like "no bootable device found please detach any devices"
What i have tried is....
Made a win10 usb with the media creation tool from another computer.
Startup repair does not work, error is "the hard drive is locked"
I have tried with the command prompt the following commands
Bootrec /fixboot Bootrec /fixmbr Bootrev /rebuildbcd *rebuildbcd tells me i have 2 installed windows os. One is regular windows and windows.old*
(If i say Yes to rebuild both of those, my media creation usb stops working if i restart. I get the error 0xc00000f and have to recreate the media creation tool on the usb. Otherwise i keep getting the same error)
I have also tried different sata ports on my motherboard, resetting bios settings, changing boot order, changed sata cable. What else can i do?
I have a dell inspiron 7000 and recently reinstalled windows 10 into my laptop after I received a system thread exception not handled error with a bootable usb. After painstakingly spending a whole day (10 hours) I succeeded in restoring my laptop with windows 10. Nevertheless, I accidentally restarted my laptop while the bootable usb is still in the usb drive and now my laptop does not even load/boot. The screen just freeze trying to load up the OS as in the spinning dots when the windows first loaded up, after 3 dots loaded, the whole screen freezes. in addition, when I try to load up windows repair, it'll load up an extra dot and freezes at 4 loading dots; I can't even load into the hard-drive through BIOS. The good thing is that I can still access the BIOS and do diagnostic test and all the stuff from BIOS. Other than that, I'm unable to access my computer.
