Image Restore Changed Drive Letter for the SSD

[bonniew88]

I have both an SSD and an HDD. I used Macrium to restore the image on the SSD. After completion, I'm unable to boot or to use safe mode. The message is no boot device found - hit any key to reboot. I used a boot program to show my pc directories and the SSD is now drive letter E and the HDD containing only music and pictures is drive letter C. How can this be corrected?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I have both an SSD and an HDD. I used Macrium to restore the image on the SSD. After completion, I'm unable to boot or to use safe mode. The message is no boot device found - hit any key to reboot. I used a boot program to show my pc directories and the SSD is now drive letter E and the HDD containing only music and pictures is drive letter C. How can this be corrected?

Did this image you made consist of SSD partitions? Or the HDD partitions? I'm guessing SSD.

Before you made this image of your SSD---how many partitions did it have? C only? C and something else?

Which of those partitions did you include in this image that you later restored?

Offhand, it appears you did NOT make a Macrium image file of the necessary partitions.

Consequently, the SSD after the restore does not match the SSD as of the time and day you made the image.

If you had made an image of the necessary partitions and restored that image, I would not expect you to get the "no boot device found" error.

That's a tentative explanation, pending whatever further details you can provide.

 

[bonniew88]

Thanks for the response. I made the Macrium image of the SSD drive and stored it on an external drive. When I used my rescue disk, it didn't show the external drive - only the HDD and two other partitions that did not contain the image. I copied the image from the external drive to the HDD so it would show up in the rescue media. When I chose to restore it, the destination showed the SSD restore going to letter G along with 2 other small partitions that meant nothing to me. When I reviewed the settings for the restore, it showed the image file going from D to the C drive so I thought all was well. Now I'm lost. How to make my SSD the primary drive that's boots to windows with my HDD the secondary. Shall I try Macrium restore again?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'm not sure exactly what you did, but clearly you went off the track somewhere.

Some clarifications: technically speaking, Macrium makes images of partitions, not drives. They are not the same, so when you say "I made an image of the SSD drive", it's not clear what you mean. Any given drive may contain 1, 2, or leventy leven partitions. Or none, for that matter. So an image of the "drive" may actually be any combination of those leventy-leven partitions, depending on the choices you made within the Macrium interface when you made the image file.


Partitions are containers within drives in the sense that cigarette packs are containers within cigarette cartons.

How to fix it? You might have luck by disconnecting the HDD completely and then running "System Repair" 3 or 4 times, re-booting between each run.

Try that. If you can then boot from your SSD with the HDD still disconnected, you probably solved the problem. The SSD should be shown as C if the System Repair is a success. In which case, re-connect the HDD and carry on.

Otherwise, if you can boot the machine at all, post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management so we can visualize your partitions rather than relying on a typed explanation.

 

[bonniew88]

Wow, so much I didn't understand. Thank you for clarifying. After a frustrating two days, and dealing with Dell Tech Non Support, I took it in for repairs. The fellow reinstalled windows on my SSD and changed the drive letter back to C. All is well, and the hefty service charge taught me to be more careful in the future. Thank you and Seven Forums for being here to help.