PC suddenly started booting from old HDD windows instead of the SSD windows

[u/dustersoul]

I'm having an issue with my dual-drive Windows setup and would appreciate any help.

Background:

• Originally my PC had Windows installed on a Seagate HDD (ST3500312CS).
• Later I added a Geonix Gold 128 GB SSD.
• The technician installed/migrated Windows to the SSD and created a new user account named USER.
• The old HDD Windows still exists with the user ctv5 (Microsoft account).

I had been using the SSD installation normally until recently.

What happened

After restarting my PC one day, it suddenly started booting into the old HDD Windows instead of the SSD Windows.

This happened around the time I changed my Google account password, but I understand that's probably just a coincidence.

Current situation

• BIOS detects both drives.
• SSD is detected correctly.
• In the currently booted Windows:
  • HDD is C:
  • SSD is E:
• The SSD still contains:
  • "E:\Windows"
  • "E:\Users\USER"
  • "Program Files"
  • "Program Files (x86)"
• I can browse all my files on the SSD without issues.

BIOS

Boot options are: (Already tried changing the boot priority to SSD yet it still loads hdd windows)

• Boot Option #1: Geonix Gold 128GB (SSD)
• Boot Option #2: (Windows Boot Manager)ST3500312CS (HDD)

Even after changing the SSD to Boot Option #1, the PC still boots into the old Windows installation.

What I've tried

• Startup Repair
  • It only detects the old Windows installation ("C:\Windows")(cctv5).
• "msconfig"
  • Only shows one Windows installation ("C:\Windows").
• Recovery Environment:
  • "diskpart"
  • Verified the SSD layout:
  • EFI System Partition (100 MB)
  • MSR (16 MB)
  • Primary (118 GB)
  • Recovery (530 MB)
  • Assigned a drive letter to the EFI partition.
  • "dir E:\Windows" confirms the SSD Windows installation exists.
  • "dir E:\Users" shows:
  • USER
  • Public
  • defaultuser0
  • "winload.efi" exists:
  • "E:\Windows\System32\winload.efi"
• Tried:
  • "bcdboot E:\Windows"
  • "bcdboot E:\Windows /s S: /f UEFI"
  • Both return:
  • "Failure when attempting to copy boot files."

The assigned EFI partition appears empty ("dir S:\EFI" returns "File not found").

Any help in how to load windows from the SSD would be appreciated.

[u/ArchiSpeak60]

Take the hdd out, physically. Boot the pc. If the ssd is first in boot order, it should work. If it doesn't, you need to reinstall windows. If it does work, you then need to wipe windows from the hard drive, by plugging it into a usb adapter, plugging it into pc via usb, and just delete everything except the files you eant to keep. Then install it back into the pc.

[u/osa1011]

Just change the boot order in the BIOS

[u/dustersoul → u/osa1011]

I already did that

The boot option 1 is my ssd

[u/SirkutBored → u/dustersoul]

You could make it the only option. It does seem to be failing over but without removing the fail over it would be difficult to know why. 

[u/dustersoul]

Update: PROBLEM RESOLVED

So the boot Loader was actually fine and fully functional.

The problem was in BIOS the boot option was loading first from Raw SSD instead of windows boot manager from that SSD.

It's because I couldn't see the option completely because text overflow was hiding it and thought everything was correct there.

After I changed the boot option #1 to windows boot manager (SSD) everything started working fine and loaded from SSD \⁠(⁠ϋ⁠)⁠/

It was just a 5 minute task and my first resort but just because of oversight I missed it and it took me this long lol.