Duplicate OSs on C: and D:

[jsmithy]

Hi
I have a Dell Inspiron 5523 (15z) laptop. I upgraded to W10 in December 2015 by doing a clean install. Everything was working fine.

To cut a long story short, something went wrong recently after I did a registry clean using CCleaner (which I’ve done before with no issues) which eventually ended up with me being unable to boot in to Windows at all – I just got BSOD and/or error messages.

So, having backups of my files, I did a new clean install of W10 last weekend. At the point of installation I wasn’t allowed to install on the C: drive (I don’t know why), so I put the OS on a different partition. I now have the C: drive (Local Disk) with Program Files etc. while drive D: is called OS. On both drives there appear to be some duplication of files and folders.

Now when I restart the PC it asks whether it should start using W10 on Volume 3 or Volume 4. I can’t see any reference to these volume numbers anywhere, including in Disk Management. Volume 4, being the newer, seems to work and so is presumably the D: drive. I can post a view of what Disk Management shows if that would help and/or what the list of folders are in each drive...

What and how can I delete from this Volume 3 to remove the apparent previous version of W10 to both stop the option appearing and free up space?

Can and should I move the OS to the C: drive? Things seem to be working OK so far and I've restored my backed-up files and reinstalled apps.

Thanks

jsmithy

 

[Trouble]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I can post a view of what Disk Management shows if that would help

That might be a good idea, to make sure that anyone attempting to provide an answer has a proper picture of exactly what you are seeing.
I would strongly recommend that before you do anything going forward that you make a disk image of the entire physical drive just in case things don't go as planned.
https://www.windows10forums.com/threads/please-for-your-own-peace-of-mind.794/

I believe the remedy is going to be a bit more complex then it might seem.
It would be easy enough to clean up the BCD store using something like EasyBCD to avoid the prompt to pick an installation when booting.
It would also probably be easy enough to use something like Mini Tool Partition Wizard to address the unneeded partition and reclaim the space.
Unfortunately there might be some registry pointers with respect to the installation and its' location on a particular drive letter, partition or volume number that may cause issues if not properly edited to reflect any changes to letters or numbers in advance of committing those changes.

We have a couple members on this forum who are pretty good with this sort of thing. Hopefully they might have some words of wisdom to contribute.

 

[jsmithy]

Hi

Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the delay, I was away for the weekend.

Attached is the shot of Disk Management, which I hope is helpful.

js

 

[Saltgrass]

If you select Volume 3 does it boot into your original install? You can tell by using Disk Management and look for the "boot" designation on the partition and the fact it probably is C:

If so, do you want to remove the new install? I am concerned that removing or changing a partition in front of the new one might mess up your boot to that one also and cause you to have to rebuild the BCD Store again.

You also no longer show a Recovery partition, so you may not have the repair capabilities without external media.

 

[jsmithy]

If you select Volume 3 does it boot into your original install? You can tell by using Disk Management and look for the "boot" designation on the partition and the fact it probably is C:

An automatic repair is attempted but fails and the PC cannot boot. I think the original OS is faulty, as I mentioned, which is why it doesn't work. The original install seems permanently broken but bits of it are still present on C:

I think the only install that works is the new one on D:

 

[Saltgrass]

I hate to suggest anything right now except make sure you have recovery/install media available.

If you get a chance run the command below which will put a text file on your Desktop of the BCD Store. Maybe from that we can figure out what happened. Since CCleaner does not mess with the BCD store it still may be something in the registry was corrupted.

You might check MSConfig.exe to see if the second boot option is listed. If it is, make sure the new install is listed as default and reboot to make sure it works. Then you can try removing the old boot option with MSconfig.

If you could provide a copy of your BCD store it might come in handy during your journey. Open an Administrative command prompt and type the following command (copy and paste if you want). Zip the text file created on your desktop and attach.

bcdedit /enum all > %userprofile%\Desktop\bcdlisting.txt

 

[jsmithy]

Hi

Thanks for your help. I will give that a try and report back.

 

[jsmithy]

Open an Administrative command prompt and type the following command (copy and paste if you want)

I did this and got 'The system cannot find the path specified'

 

[jsmithy]

No, it did work...

 

[Saltgrass]

I notice some of your BCD store entries are listed as en-US and some are en-GB. I have no idea what effect that might have, but the one which appears to be booting is showing as en-GB.

 

[jsmithy]

the one which appears to be booting is showing as en-GB

That's OK, because I'm in GB.