SOLVED Win10 fresh install, missing recovery or efi partition?

[spamuel]

Hello everybody!

Ive recently upgraded my computer hardware with a M.2 SSD, installed windows 10 on it and started configuring it.
But now, after a few days of config/install, i noticed that the installer didnt actually install a recovery or efi partition but instead seems to rely on my previous system drive for those two partitions.

The previous system drive (SATA ssd) is supposed to be connected to another machine later, so i kind of need to fix this before disconnecting it..

So is there any way to solve this without re-installing the system?

I do have a secondary M.2 drive, so i can prep that one as system drive, as long as i can COPY the current installation, but i seem to be unable to find how to actually create those two missing partitions..

 

[Bighorn]

But now, after a few days of config/install, i noticed that the installer didnt actually install a recovery or efi partition but instead seems to rely on my previous system drive for those two partitions.

Reading forums indicates a common issue in fresh/clean install of Win10 is in having 2 or more drives connected during the process, I got caught once a few weeks ago when Win10 set the 2 drives up as RAID, disconnecting the second drive caused boot failure necessitating a wipe and clean install on the only connected drive. The example is intended also as best advice in how to proceed for best results. Moving the original drive with Windows still installed to a different computer entails other issues such as having the proper drivers, activation issue on different hardware, etc.

 

[spamuel]

The disk is going to be connected to the same old hardware i removed while upgrading my pc, so no sweat there..

Im unable to only have one connected harddrive since i dont have a optical drive or a big enough USB drive, im forced to copy the windows install image to a partition on one of my harddrives..

 

[Saltgrass]

It would be nice to see a picture of your disk management window and expanded enough so we can read the partitions descriptions..

Do you have a third party partition management software available?

 

[Clintlgm]

To save your current OS, you'll need to create an Image C Partition to an external drive. then run a new Install with only your SSD installed. Let the install complete. then restore the image of C partition back to SSD overwriting the newly install C partition Macrium Reflect Free would be the best program to do this. That should fix your EFI and RE partitions you EFI already knows to boot to C partition Then your 2nd drive you should connect it VIA USB and convert it to a logical drive, killing the boot sector.

Really the easiest way is to just Clone your Current Hard Drive/SSD to your new SSD takes about 20 minutes and no reinstalling anything or configuring MR just works

after the clone if you do it internally you'll need to use the one time boot key for your computer Dell is F12 Asus is Esc from the one time boot menu select your new SSD to boot from once your in window you can convert the old drive/SSD to logical to kill the boot sector

 

[spamuel]

I actually managed to solve the problem already!

i did create some sort of system restore image of my freshly installed system (from the M.2 C, witch created a "install.wim"-file, witch i then dropped into the sources folder in a newly created windows installer partition at the end of the M.2 ssd.
I belive it was called a "custom recovery image" in the tutorial i followed.

Then i disconnected all other drives, booted into the installer and deleted all other partitions on the M.2 drive (exept for the installer partition) and created a single partition, filling the reste of the disk.
The installer then asked if it was ok to create some other partitions that the system would need.

After that, the installer completed in about 20 minutes and after the first (and only) reboot, it presented the login screen, with my user accounts, apps and settings already configured.

It took me "only" about 20 work-hours to find the 30-minute solution..


I know i could have copied the SATA drive partitions to the M.2 drive, i even got some software bundled with the M.2 that would do that, but the reason for this hardware upgrade was that my computer has been crashing (bluescreen) for the past 5 years or so and i wanted to start fresh, without any parts of the old system.



Thank you folks, for your time and effort in helping me solve this issue, im truly grateful that we live in a time where support forums exist!