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Dual boot windows 10

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1K views 7 replies 3 participants last post by  spunk.funk 
#1 ·
Dell Studio XPS 8100, about 6 years old, running Windows 10 Pro build 10586 with 2 separate Seagate hard drives, originally configured as RAID0 (striping) and RAID1 (Mirroring). Always had C drive (I assume is RAID0) as the default drive and never used the D drive except for system image backups. C drive now on the way out - SMART error, so cloned it to the D drive using Acronis TrueImage 2016. Used Easy BCD to get D to boot but although I get the dual boot Windows 10 screen, if I choose the D drive, Windows boots to a flashing desktop and cursor with blue ring. After about an hour, I can eventually click on an icon on the task bar and file explorer will eventually appear. Obviously not right! Ctrl-Alt-Del gets me back to restart. Booting to the C drive is fine and the PC works a treat. All my data is backed up to a laptop and also a WD My Passport. Have used DISM and SFC to check D drive file system and all appears OK. Would like to have single boot to D drive, but not before I can be assured that I can boot to D OK. Any ideas as to what I need to do?
 
#2 ·
Firs off, if this in fact a RAID setup of any kind, you should only be seeing ONE (1) drive and only ONE (1) drive. As RAID, either by software or hardware combines the 2 drives into one usable drive and then it's either RAID 0, 1, 5, 10....it can not be 2 types of RAID as you've described.

You can confirm a RAID setup by looking in your BIOS....or some 3rd party software will could tell you. The easiest way is to check your device manager under storage controllers.

If in fact you do have a RAID, it's paramount to back up the RAID data and confirm that the data is intact. Once you brake (discontinue) the RAID array, your data is lost.

After the RAID is broken, the drives have to be formatted (data wiped) in order to use them.....no way around that. Then the decision on what to do with the HDD's....
 
#3 ·
2 separate Seagate hard drives, originally configured as RAID0 (striping) and RAID1
As stated, you can't have 2 HDD's in a RAID 0 and a RAID 1. RAID 0 is two HDD's that are joined and striped to look like one big HDD in Windows, it will not show as two drives.
RAID 1 would be two HDD's where drive two is a mirror copy of Drive one, and only Drive one is viewable in Windows.
If you break the RAID 0 all data is lost, the only way to use the drives is to format them. If you break a RAID 1 either drive can be used on it's own but it may have trouble booting. If you clone either RAID array when one drive has failed or is failing, then many of the Windows files will be corrupted and may not boot.
 
#5 ·
Holding the CTRL + I key will let you enter the RAID utility and give you a better idea what is going on.
Try removing Drive 0, and attach the SATA cable from Drive 1 to the same SATA port on the motherboard as Drive 0. If you can get to the desktop, then go to Start/Search and type CMD, Right click the CMD results and Run As Administrator. In the Elevated Command Prompt type SFC /scannow and press. This will replace any missing system files.
If you can't get to the desktop without flashing, then try pressing F8, and choose Safe Mode with Networking. Update your Video card driver.
If that fails, boot off of an Windows 10 boot media and choose Repair Your Computer. If that fails, press Shift+F10 to go directly to the Command Prompt in the RE (recovery environment) then

At command prompt (x: sources) type this exactly as written:
bcdedit |find “osdevice” (Must inc and the |), the | before Find is the Upper case \ key) press enter. This will tell you what drive letter the OS is on.It may not be on the C: drive.
Now use the returned as the drive letter for OS, for this example, assume C: or whatever drive letter is the os device


At the X:\Sources prompt, type: bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup and press enter, next:
Type:- c: and press enter

At the C:\ prompt, type: cd boot and press enter

At the C:\Boot prompt, type: attrib bcd -s -h -r and press enter
.
At the C:\Boot prompt, type: ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old and press enter

At the C:\Boot prompt, type: bootrec /rebuildbcd and press enter
The Boot Configuration File will be rebuilt at this point. Once it finishes, type exit and press enter. Click the Restart button
 
#6 ·
What a star Spunk.funk. Removed the SATA cable from drive 0 and attached it to drive 1, found it was then listed as drive C, did the BCD bits, did the Windows 10 bits and with a few false starts, got the drive up and running and have reinstalled a few programmes and NIS. Running very nicely.

Thanks again and I think we can close this thread.
 
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