[P650HS-G] How do I install Win 10 on a second HDD

Hi Folks,

This is something that I've been trying to do and failing miserably. So here's the situation.

I've 3 drives installed on my laptop. 525GB Crucial MX300 (M2), a 750GB HDD and a 128GB Sandisk SATA SSD. I currently have Win 10 installed on the Crucial SSD in EFI mode. I am trying to install another Win 10 on the Sandisk SSD.

The installation works, and it completes the installation without any issues. However, after rebooting I get presented with the boot menu and when selecting the new install, I get an error stating some files are missing. I tried several times and the end result is the same.

Usually, what I normally do is to disable the SATA ports for other drives in the BIOS and then proceed with the installation. Unfortunately the BIOS on the laptop has no such feature and I'm only given one boot point, pointing to the Crucial SSD.

I'm new to EFI styled BIOS so not sure how to proceed and what to look for on google.

Any assistance is appreciated

Thanks.

 

You could open the laptop and remove the other 2 drives, then install.

 

You can use diskpart to send the Crucial SSD and the HDD to Offline status, leaving your Sandisk as the only Online drive.

Boot to the install media from your USB key
Hit Shift+F10 at the Language/Time/Currency Screen
Run diskpart and offline the other disks

• list disk>select disk #> offline

exit diskpart and cmd window

note:
-use 'online' to reverse it
-diskpart can be run without a flash drive via Win+R>diskpart, but I think sending your primary drive offline while using it won't be very helpful (lol)

It's quick and simple, lots of info on the web.
Microsoft Diskpart commands
Microsoft Offline/Online info
simple Offline disk example

 

When prompted select Custom: Install Windows Only Advanced

Next it should ask where to install Windows, select each partition and select delete until you are left with only the 3 drive (WARNING - this will delete ALL DATA)

Select the drive you want to install windows on. In this case the drive with 125GB free

Let me know how you get on.

 

Check the link, especially post #2...Phoenix has posted a lot of useful info here.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/nbr-windows-10-clean-installation-guide.781178/

 

Also check your downloaded install is ok.

 

This is what I wanted to avoid. Will keep it as a last resort.

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Installation media is fine. It's the same installation media used in our office.

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Thanks for the suggestion, but deleting isn't an option. The 128GB SSD has nothing on it. It's clean and fresh and other drives have important data on them.

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I downloaded and ran visual BCD editor and it threw an error when starting up. Then played around with it for a bit, but didn't save anything as I can remember, however, now I'm able to boot to the second installation without any problems.

Thanks for all your help. Merry Christmas.

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I'm guessing you booted to your Crucial SSD Windows, downloaded+used vizBCD a bit, then decided to try booting to your SanDisk again and it worked...

I have no idea how that problem would resolve itself, and I'd be a bit leary of doing critical work on it, but I'm glad to hear you got to the desktop!

Merry Christmas to you too!

 

Thanks @slimmolG. I don't think there's any issues with either drive. My guess is that during the installation something got screwed up with BCD which was causing the problem. So either running the VIZBCD or the fact that I used the built-in windows boot menu editor to change the default boot OS and the wait time might have corrected these problems.

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in that case just select the 128GB SSD

Also, modify the boot order so it boot to the 128GB SSD first

 

Windows has a habit of putting system files/EFI boot information on another drive, when available. It's a pain, but removing the other drives to properly install might be necessary.

 

Yep and when you remove that drive in the future then no boot, it should have an advanced option to set it.