Total Boot Failure After Removing Second SSD - Win 10

Well...I put the new computer together (hardware and software) and everything went well. Its much simpler nowadays than back in the 90s and earlier. However, I then realized some of the minor stuff (like plug ins and utilities) can't be activated because they are older (and some companies are out of business or the servers don't work...that sort of thing). So its quite disappointing and trying to figure out how to deal with that...which means I need to keep attempting to fix the old computer.

From a historical perspective, I had some computers totally "fail" back in 3.1 and Win95 days. Less so in Win98 and I don't think anything I couldn't recover from since Win2000 and later (until recently). Recently, they started to take more control over things, which is good in some ways, but was really bad in this case. In fairness, I should have had an image to recover from, but it had been 20 yrs since any serious issues so I figured it was low risk. This failure was totally on Win10. Removing a secondary disk shouldn't cause it to automatically spiral out of control. All it had to do (like in the past) was just not boot. Then I would have put the disk back and made an image that point (or 2 images). I would have then determined if there was a dependency on the second disk. That way I am safe...more or less. However, it just started doing all kinds of stuff without my permission and really made a muck of it. Putting the second disk back in didn't help at all. Oh well..,back to seeing if I can get the old one up and running again.

Yeah, just as you predicted, the older apps & plug-ins are not working. Sounds like a lot of trouble, but can you find modern replacements to do the same work? And that sounds right, too, that things are harder to fix now, I guess in the name of protection. They're trying to protect our data. I wish I had more ideas on how to fix it or even what it is that actually went bad. When you opened the box to replace the SSD, was anything else touched? In a recent thread it was RAM causing a reboot to fail every second time. And the RAM had tested well when put in & was well matched to what was already there. Still, when removed, the computer would restart perfectly every time. Yep, I keep 5 Windows Backup & Restore system images now, one made each time a new OS Build comes in & works. And I keep one image per new OS version made with a 3rd-party app. What exactly does show up at your BIOS Setup screens? I once went through mine & wrote down everything I saw.

Good luck, & keep us informed.

Modern replacements may be possible, but it would be a extensive project to verify they would work (if they even did). Of course, at some point, one has to address the long term viability, but some transition time would be nice (and be able to observe behavior of the original).

No other hardware was touched. I think the exact process was that I removed the OS drive and tried booting (I wasn't sure which was which). It just didn't do anything as expected. Then I put the OS drive back in (realizing which was which now) and also put the new drive in (but skipping the step of verifying that everything would work if I put it back together as before - just assuming it would). At this point, when I booted, it had an issue and automatically tried to fix it. I was able to get to the repair screen (from the OS drive), but none of the basic options did much. I put everything back together as was before, but same issue of not booting (straight to repair options). Then I hit the forum because I am not familiar with Win10 recovery. I was quite good at DOS, 3.1, W95, W98, W2000. After that, my skills dropped off.

As far as the BIOS "setup", its a typical kind of BIOS from 2010 (ASUS). I don't think I really adjusted anything from the defaults (maybe a few minor things).

It shouldn't have, but BIOS may have have had a trauma when it saw no OS drive. Then maybe it couldn't recover when it was replaced. Also, there's a chance the automatic repair talks to BIOS & said something nasty, which is what you suspect. What exactly does it say on the BIOS Boot Screen anyway? Especially, what is on top of the boot order?

Yeah, it may have been "traumatized", haha. I did have quick book turned on, so perhaps it didn't go through the proper procedures. I turned if off, but no help.

As far as the boot order, I've changed it a few times to allow it to boot form the USB drive...so I can't remember what the state was in. For now, I set the top priority to the disk, but same response.

I still haven't contacted MS, but I suppose that is next. My fear is that it will be a lot of wasted time and no help, but I don't another option. The service isn't what it used to be...the issues don't seem to actually be "understood properly" if that makes sense.