New Behavior After Fresh Install on an Empty SSD - Anyone Else Seen Same?

[britechguy]

I've been installing/reinstalling Windows 10 since its first months of release, and what has occurred today is a completely new one on me.

A client brought in his gaming machine to have the NVMe M.2 SSD replaced (which, by the way, I have no idea of exactly why - I reinstalled Win10 Pro on it just for the fun of it first, and it checks out fine under chkdsk and all the S.M.A.R.T. stats), so I put in a new 500GB Crucial P1.

Did the usual clean install (Version 20H2 - ISO downloaded only a few days ago) on to an uninitialized drive, went perfectly, but when the machine boots up it's showing the menu to choose which Windows you want to start up and shows two different instances.

On the 1TB drive, after the first time it no longer did this. On the 500 GB drive, it's still showing that choice, but I have no idea why. It's not a huge deal, as I just set the default to the correct (first) instance and the timer to 3 seconds, but it's still very odd as far as I'm concerned.

Has anyone seen anything like this on a Windows 10 install to a brand spankin' new and uninitialized drive?

 

[fincoder]

Has anyone seen anything like this on a Windows 10 install to a brand spankin' new and uninitialized drive?

Windows setup must have found another drive with a boot partition and OS on it. In this case the boot partition on that second drive is reused for the new install (even though it points back to the drive you selected for installation), and a boot menu is created for accessing both OS instances. This means the secondary drive must be present and functioning to boot from the SSD, not an ideal situation. This Windows install behaviour is to enable dual boot, which isn't used much any more.

For this reason, secondary drives should be disconnected when installing Windows. That's the only way to ensure an install only uses the selected drive for boot partition.

 

[britechguy]

Well, the only drive present in the tower that I can see, anywhere, is the SSD noted. Hence the reason for my question.

I always try to have only the boot drive available for an install and follow your advice when I can see anything else that can be disconnected, but in this case I don't.

I'll have to look more closely, but since this case has a tempered glass side and I can see the whole mobo, I don't know where another drive could be hiding.

 

[fincoder]

I don't know where another drive could be hiding.

Behind the mobo tray? Don't forget it's common now to use 2.5" SSDs for extra storage, some cases mount these behind the motherboard tray (take off the other side panel).

During Windows setup on the drive selection screen you would have seen any other drives though.

 

[britechguy]

During the Window setup I was seeing something like 5 drives (four of them shown as logical partitions on a device I could not locate), and then the uninitiated drive that had just been popped in.

There was nothing attached, either. The owner says it only has the SSD I replaced, but I thought I might have seen a 2.5" drive behind the liquid cooled graphics card, which is huge and which I had no intention of removing to find out.

The system boots, and just fine, to what I specified as the default drive, but I still don't get what's going on with this hardware. I also cannot fathom what would have wiped the original Windows 10 installation from what, after reinstalling, showed itself to be a perfectly intact drive. It's all just very, very peculiar.

But he's got a system with a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro Version 20H2 with a local account with admin privileges, so he's set to create his real account and move along from there.

This was less than an hour job after I had the monitor so I could see what I was doing, which is exactly what I expected.

 

[fincoder]

During the Window setup I was seeing something like 5 drives (four of them shown as logical partitions on a device I could not locate), and then the uninitiated drive that had just been popped in.

So there was definitely another drive. The BIOS screens should show all the SATA and NVMe drives connected.

I thought I might have seen a 2.5" drive behind the liquid cooled graphics card, which is huge and which I had no intention of removing to find out.

Or another M.2 slot with SSD, hidden by the graphics card.

If the boot partition is removed from the second drive and the install done again onto the new SSD, the boot partition will hopefully be created on the new SSD (and no resulting boot menu).

 

[britechguy]

Well, I'll never know for certain, no matter how strongly we both suspect it. I would never tear out a liquid cooled graphics card that's *huge* and taking up more space than anything than the mobo itself to pull a secondary drive.

He'll have to live with the menu.

 

[nlinecomputers]

What happens if you try to boot to the second item? Also, there are boot menu editing tools that can remove the other option.

 

[britechguy]

I didn't try to boot the second after confirming that the first was the actual instance I wanted.

 

[fincoder]

He'll have to live with the menu.

Yes fair enough. At least from this thread you know what happened now, the only mystery is where the second drive was installed. Modern cases have strange mounting positions for 2.5" drives, and high-end mobos have multiple M.2 slots that are often hidden by a GPU, so it's not much of a mystery.

 

[mikeroq]

Personally I would have checked the BIOS and seen what drives it reported and tracked down the mystery drive.

Then I would have checked to see what drive the boot loader was on. If it was on the 500GB I would have cleaned the other drive and create a new partition on it for store. After that I would remove the other entry from the boot loader so the menu never comes up.

If the other drive had the boot loader I would have wiped it and removed it, then reloaded Windows on the desired 500GB drive to ensure the bootloader was on the same drive. Then reinstall the other drive and partition it.

 

[Computer Bloke]

...to have the NVMe M.2 SSD replaced (which, by the way, I have no idea of exactly why...

And the burning question is: Now that we know there were two drives in there, did you replace the right one?

I've been in this business long enough that I never take on work that I don't understand. Doubly so when I understand the process but I don't understand why the client wants it done, as the chances are that the client doesn't really understand it either and may be dissatisfied with the results - loudly and publicly.

 

[britechguy]

Well, we're still in touch.

When I client hands me a piece of equipment, and a replacement part, and directs me to replace it then if I do that I have done what was asked. Most "kids" (and he is under 20) who have custom built machines know what they have and can give decent instructions as to what they're looking for in my experience. This so happens to be one of those where it wasn't the case.

Since the machine would not even boot before, and does now, well . . .

I never "tear down" custom builds to do something unless I absolutely, positively must, and this was no execption. With a specific request, and a clear path to completing that request, I performed the service.

And if I never took on work that I don't understand when taking it I'd have none. Most residential customers can't get beyond "it's broken." Part of my job is diagnosis when something's handed to me. In this case, when the requested replacement allowed the machine to function again and I was able to reload Windows 10, as far as I'm concerned my job was done. The client had been told that what he'd get back was a completely clean install and with no former data available, several times.

There's only so much I can do, or will do. I've had fewer dissatisfied clients than I can count on one hand, and when push comes to shove, unless I am at fault, that's just a part of the bargain. I've said many times in the past that I really don't trust any business that has nothing but glowingly positive reviews over a long period of time. It screams "shills!!"

 

[britechguy]

Just as an FYI, this is the mobo he's got, along with some annotations about the case and what's installed:



I plan on just doing another quick reinstall of Windows 10 Pro, now knowing exactly where to look to pull the SATA cables for the extra drive(s). These are not "under glass" but should be easily visible if one is looking for them, which I wasn't, since the answer to my initial question, "Does this machine have additional drives," was answered with, "No."

Lesson learned as far as double checking in all instances that what has been reported is correct.

 

[fincoder]

Lesson learned as far as double checking in all instances that what has been reported is correct.

No you just need to remember that user info may be incorrect. The important lesson is that when the Windows setup drive selection screen is showing two drives you need to believe it, and you should have stopped and disconnected the second drive before starting the install again.

 

[brandonkick]

Yep, agreed.

Boot sectors live on disk drives, and as far as I know a boot sector is never stored on a motherboard. So if windows setup is showing partitions and drives you don't think should be there / don't recognize, or the BIOS/UEFI screen is showing drives you don't recognize... you have one somewhere... possibly even a USB drive?