Total Boot Failure After Removing Second SSD - Win 10

I removed the "data" drive just to make things easier (and keep things decoupled). Maybe that was a bad idea? A couple reponses:

1 - Yes, the "BCDBoot  E:\Windows" command did work as I remember.

2 - Here is the List Vol with both drives plugged in, for reference. One thing is bizarre is that I actually have one of the drive labels as "ESP" (Ltr=D). I named it this myself since it is representative of something related to work (it was not automatically named that).

From List Vol:

Volume 0 J DVD-ROM 0B

Volume 1 C Data NTFS Partition 100MB

Volume 2 F OS NTFS Partition 237GB

Volume 3 G NTFS Partition 860MB

Volume 3 D ESP NTFS Partition 328GB

Volume 3 H HOME NTFS Partition 68GB

Volume 3 I DATA NTFS Partition 69GB

Volume 4 E ESD-USB FAT32 ESD-USB Removable 14GB

From List Disk:

Disk### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

Disk 0 Online 238GB 5120KB

Disk 1 Online 465GB 1024KB

Disk 2 Online 14GB 0B

A couple notes:

• The driver letters are different when both drives are plugged in.
• The only FAT32 drive is the USB disc
• The "Free" seems odd. I don't remember it being that little space free...seems implausible. And I know the USB disc is not full.
• Not asterisks in the List Disk

I didn't want to do anything else until you had a look at this and gave me some direction. My first initial plan is to now remove the second drive though and just use the primary drive.

EDIT: I see there are other questions that need to be answered. I'll get that within a few hours and report back.

The prior post was with both discs. Getting back to just one disc, here are some answers to the other questions:

1 - BCDBoot  E:\Windows did complete successfully as I remember

2 -

Volume 0 G DVD-ROM 0B

Volume 1 C Data NTFS Partition 100MB

Volume 2 E OS NTFS Partition 237GB

Volume 3 F NTFS Partition 860MB Hidden

Volume 4 D ESD-USB FAT32 Removable 14GB

3 - No asterisk under Gpt when performing list disk

Volume 1 is still C and is 100MB

Partition 1

Type: 07

Hidden: No

Active: Yes

Offset in Bytes: 1048576

Volume 1, C, Data, NTFS, Partition, 100MB, Healthy

From dir C:\ /a, I get:

Volume in drive C is Data

Volume Serial Number is ...

$Recylcle.bin <DIR>

Boot <DIR>

bootmgr

BOOTNXT

BOOTSEC.BAK

Recovery <DIR>

Recovery.txt

System Volume Information <DIR>

The other part of your question in 3(b) confused me because I didn't see the windows\system32...but I believe it would exist on E: (the partition with windows)

4 -

device partition=C:

path \Windows\system32\winload.exe

locale en-US

The absence of an asterisk means the drive is in the MBR partitioning style which is telltale of a Legacy installation. Does the computer have UEFI capability? if so, you should do a UEFI install, if you end up needing to do a clean install. It is better for security & hard drive capabilities. Have you ever gone into BIOS to see whether the word "UEFI" is mentioned anywhere, especially at the Boot screen? That would say whether UEFI is possible.

One thing: Yours is a Legacy installation. If somehow (possibly by resetting it to defaults) the BIOS is set to boot in UEFI mode, it would fail. Can you get into BIOS Setup & check for that? Put it back into Legacy mode, & this problem will be solved hopefully. Well. to get there, press & hold an F-Key during boot at your computer manufacturer's logo (or at the black screen just before it). If yours is a Dell, that key is F2. Otherwise look it up here...

https://www.sysnative.com/forums/threads/get-access-to-bios-settings-boot-menu-f-keys-hotkeys-by-system-manufacturer-oem.23010/

Get access to BIOS settings & Boot Menu: F-keys/Hotkeys by System Manufacturer (OEM)

Note: That is a 3rd-party site that knows its F-Keys, but I know nothing (bad or good) about any downloads or links that may be there (or anywhere else).

If you do change it back to Legacy mode, be sure to save changes before you exit. Good luck. A quick look at the data you've provided comes up empty for a problem. It all looks good for a Legacy installation. But we can try more parameters on the BCDBoot command, which I'll post separately.

I don't believe it has UEFI capability and its quite old so not worth reinstalling on it. I am building another computer anyway. I am familiar with how to work in the BIOS (going back to the early 90s) but don't see anything regarding UEFI. I believe the motherboard is an ASUS P7H55-M PRO (which looks to be over 10 years old). I built it myself (its not a "brand name" computer). I originally installed Windows 7 on it, but not sure when...probably between 2011 and 2014 or so.

EDIT: According to this link, it does not have UEFI support.

http://findhard.ru/en/motherboards/model?id=1944&m=asus-p7h55-m-pro

So what can be done now? From a hardware perspective, its junk. But there are some really important things I'd like to access on it still.

Files can be backed up manually.

Alternatively Windows may be able to backup files to Windows.old.

Consider custom and clean install options as per the post dated July 16,2022.

These options may allow you to install a fresh operating system then reinstall drivers and applications and restore files.