PC wont boot hard drive

JustAnotherSaver · 5 January 2019 at 12:06AM

To try and keep it simple:

2 drives in the machine. Let's call them C & E.

C: 256GB SSD
E: 2TB SSHD

The machine has been set up on a dual boot (and has been since 2016 - the last time it was formatted) but here's the unusual part - both drives are running windows 7 64 bit pro.

I know i know, unusual. But it's worked for 2 years.

when you'd boot to the drive and go in My Computer, E cannot 'see' C but when you boot to the C drive C >can< 'see' E. With me?

Now out of the blue it springs a fault and wont boot to what is the E drive. The error is pretty much this one by the looks of it:

Now i disconnected all drives (there's actually a couple other storage drives in the tower but like i said, i'm trying to simplify it) leaving ONLY the E drive connected - still got the error message.

When i installed the OS on the drives back in 2016, i've had a look yesterday at the files in the Windows folder and it seems that E drive was installed on first and then Windows 7 was installed on the C drive second.

I do remember using EasyBCD somewhere after installing on the 256GB SSD drive but i can't remember exactly what i did with it. I know i'll have had to have changed the default boot drive to be the 'E' drive as that's how i have it set up on the dual boot screen.

Basically i want to have it so it will boot to either drive again like it has for the past 2 years. I obviously don't want to lose files on the C drive in the process (or lose the ability to boot to C).

Heedtheadvice · 5 January 2019 at 11:23AM

Hopefully more expert chaps will be along soon but......

Sounds like a problem on the E drive if it will not boot by itself.
Can the bios see it?
If not can it be seen if changing to the known good cable/interface used by the currently seen C drive?

If you run from the C drive can diagnostics such as seagate disk tools see and test the drive?
If faults located can they be fixed?

Could be something else of course such as a corrupted file but starting with the basics

that · 5 January 2019 at 2:16PM

This is a can of worms, and that is being kind.

I take it that because of the complex setup, you have made backup images of both disks?

Firstly do no damage, and change nothing. Get a winPE or a live linux disk and both drives should be readable, so copy the data you want off both drives to usb. Also from that live bootup cd/usb install into ram a smart disk checker and point it at both drives. Lastly I would do a read only chkdsk of the drives.

Generally speaking, it would have been better if you only booted of one machine, and put the second windows 7 as a virtual machine

that · 5 January 2019 at 2:24PM

I the smart anf chkdsk tests passes on both, now determine which partition structure you are using:
under live linux look here
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/120221/gpt-or-mbr-how-do-i-know

For winPE look here
https://www.easyuefi.com/resource/check-mbr-or-gpt.html

debitcardmayhem · 5 January 2019 at 2:49PM

Load your windows 7 disk and select repair, it should see both versions if not then come back for more help.Select the one on the E disk and try auto repair

Edit: also look here https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/win7-windows-7-mbr,news-33163.html

JustAnotherSaver · 5 January 2019 at 9:10PM

I get some of what you guys have said but also there's bits i don't understand. I'm not a technology whizz by any means.

Regards the "it would've been better" comment. I don't know if you're coming from a 'from the get go' viewpoint or from a repairing viewpoint.

If the former then i've had this set up in place for 2 years now no problems. Actually it's been in place for the past 8 years, it's just that 2 years ago i formatted the hard drives simply to get rid of all junk & just start afresh. So 8 years on this setup with no issues. Indeed i've actually made no major changes on the E drive so can't understand why this has happened & the drive itself is only about 2 years old.

Yes i've actually recently done a backup of the drives. I bought Acronis as i thought it'd been many months since i'd backed up anything so figured i better do something about that. Glad i did now.
I can actually access the E drive from within the C drive. It's showing up in My Computer. That's another thing - through disk management i'd 'hidden' E from C and C from E. I noticed something wasn't right when i opened up My Computer the other day while in the C drive & saw E listed.

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

Load your windows 7 disk and select repair, it should see both versions if not then come back for more help.Select the one on the E disk and try auto repair

Edit: also look here https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/win7-windows-7-mbr,news-33163.html

What bothers me about the repair is whether it'll affect the booting of the C drive.

I didn't want to blindly jump in to the 'repair' and just because it says the word 'repair think that everything will be A-ok afterwards and then curse myself when it actually ends up not booting to C or E.
There might be absolutely zero chance of that happening but i thought i'd play safe and ask first.

John_Gray · 5 January 2019 at 9:54PM

It looks to me that you should investigate EasyBCD...

esuhl · 5 January 2019 at 10:44PM

The 0xc0000225 error definitely sounds like a BCD (boot) problem.

I'd try "Fix #3" to rebuild the BCD here:
https://neosmart.net/wiki/0xc0000225/#Fix_3_Rebuild_the_BCD_manually

As for one Windows installation not recognising the other... Have you tried running diskmgmt.msc (via the run box) and checking whether a drive letter has been assigned to the drive?

Or maybe you need to install the SSD drivers if the drive isn't detected at all...?

debitcardmayhem · 5 January 2019 at 10:57PM

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

I get some of what you guys have said but also there's bits i don't understand. I'm not a technology whizz by any means.

Regards the "it would've been better" comment. I don't know if you're coming from a 'from the get go' viewpoint or from a repairing viewpoint.

If the former then i've had this set up in place for 2 years now no problems. Actually it's been in place for the past 8 years, it's just that 2 years ago i formatted the hard drives simply to get rid of all junk & just start afresh. So 8 years on this setup with no issues. Indeed i've actually made no major changes on the E drive so can't understand why this has happened & the drive itself is only about 2 years old.

Yes i've actually recently done a backup of the drives. I bought Acronis as i thought it'd been many months since i'd backed up anything so figured i better do something about that. Glad i did now.
I can actually access the E drive from within the C drive. It's showing up in My Computer. That's another thing - through disk management i'd 'hidden' E from C and C from E. I noticed something wasn't right when i opened up My Computer the other day while in the C drive & saw E listed.

What bothers me about the repair is whether it'll affect the booting of the C drive.

I didn't want to blindly jump in to the 'repair' and just because it says the word 'repair think that everything will be A-ok afterwards and then curse myself when it actually ends up not booting to C or E.
There might be absolutely zero chance of that happening but i thought i'd play safe and ask first.

The link I posted also talks about BCD and repairing taht too , but if you have a disc and you can use command prompt there too to edit etc the BCD, there used to be many people on here who could advise probably better than me, but if it detects your second Windows install then select it and let it try , also look on sevenforums https://www.sevenforums.com/.
At the end of the day have you got backups of the important stuff? if so ....
I won't ask you to blindly follow my advice, and someone may come along and give you better advice, assuming your "E" drive is working and the Windows instance is foobarred then nothing to lose

JustAnotherSaver · 6 January 2019 at 1:02AM

esuhl wrote: »

The 0xc0000225 error definitely sounds like a BCD (boot) problem.

I said "the error is pretty much this one" as in it isn't that one but that's basically what the screen looked like.

The actual code is 0xc000000e

esuhl · 6 January 2019 at 3:06AM

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

I said "the error is pretty much this one" as in it isn't that one but that's basically what the screen looked like.

The actual code is 0xc000000e

Ah... That sounds like the device is not recognised. Possibly the BCD or BIOS/UEFI settings are corrupt.

If you haven't changed any BIOS settings you could try rebuilding the BCD (as mentioned above). Otherwise, perhaps the CR2032 battery (that saves BIOS settings) has become flat and needs replacing...?

PC wont boot hard drive

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