Windows 10 Can only boot from secondary drive (Windows 10)

  • Thread starter Thread starter fellhammer
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fellhammer

I'm having an issue where I can only boot from my secondary drive (ie. not the one where Windows is installed). This is a problem because I want to format that drive, and I can't boot from my primary drive that Windows is installed on.


I believe this started when I installed Xbox Game Pass for PC. The Xbox Game Pass app will only install itself/games to the default drive where applications are installed, and I wanted it to install to my secondary drive (my primary is small, my secondary is where I install games and large applications). So I went into Windows Storage Options and changed the "New apps will save to" location to my secondary drive. When I did this, it appears some Windows system folders were installed to my secondary drive.


Now I'm trying to replace my secondary drive with a new one, and I discover that I can't delete those Windows system folders. Additionally, when I tried booting from my primary drive, I got a "Bootmgr not found" error. I tried booting from a USB Windows ISO and using the repair feature, no luck. I tried using CMD to enter bootrec.exe /fixmbr, bootrec.exe /fixboot, and bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd to no avail. Now when I try booting from the primary drive I get a " "Operating System not Found" error.


How can I fix this short of reinstalling Windows on my primary drive? Will that even solve my booting problem? Once I do that, how do I delete the Windows system folders off my secondary drive?

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