I recently built my new PC and was able to access the BIOS, which is a positive sign. However, I'm facing a couple of issues: my exhaust fan isn't running — I think I might have missed a connection in the daisy chain — and more importantly, while I've moved my old 3.5" hard drives into the new case, the BIOS isn't detecting any bootable devices. There's a chance my Windows installation might have corrupted since my old PC was also having booting issues before I decided to upgrade. I do have my old optical drive and a Windows 10 install CD, so I'm considering a fresh install to the new M.2 drive, but I want to troubleshoot the boot issue before taking that step. Any advice on what I should check or try?
6 Answers
Check the BIOS to see what the boot drive is currently set to. Try removing the M.2 drive for now and see if you can boot into Windows from the old drives. If you switched from Intel to AMD or vice versa, a reinstall is usually a good idea. Also, make sure your Windows installation is linked to a Microsoft account for easier activation later.
Since you've mentioned that you can't reorder the boot sequence due to the drives not showing up as bootable, I think your best bet is indeed to run the Windows repair from the CD. If that fails, you will have to go for the fresh install.
A fresh install could simplify things! Just remember to back up the important files from your old drives before proceeding.
Consider disabling Secure Boot and UEFI settings in the BIOS. Sometimes those settings can prevent the system from recognizing older drives.
It sounds like you might end up spending a lot of time troubleshooting. You could boot from a recovery media to run disk checks, but if the boot device still isn’t detected, I’d recommend just doing a fresh install. That way, you can transfer your data afterward without the hassle of fixing the boot issue first.
You might want to check which drives were in your old PC. It's possible that the boot manager is on one of those older drives instead of the new one. A fresh install onto the new M.2 drive could be a good solution too, just to ensure a clean slate.
Good point about the Windows account! I didn't think of that but it makes sense.