SSD activity on start when additional drive is in place

A major screw up.

I have multiple (4) drive bays with two 2.5 inch SSDs normally in
place. One for the operating system and the other for data.

I clone either of the drives by shutting down the system and placing a
SSD drive in a 3rd or 4th bay.

Recently when I restarted the computer after adding a 3rd SSD and
before the sign on screen the drives became actively thrashing,
slowing the sign on screens appearance. After signing on to a user the
thrashing continues, consuming apparently all the resources because
although the system doesn't lock up, attempting to do anything takes
forever.

I have been using Acronis 2015 and found that it had started a log
when I signed on and thought perhaps it or something else was
attempting to sync the drives. Looked through Win 7 and found the Sync
Center had no partnerships and finally decided that Acronis must be
the problem. Removed Acronis (difficult) from the system.

Shut the system down and downloaded Macrium Reflect and proceeded to
clone the C drive to an old C drive that I keep for that purpose.
Things appeared to go normally and after 40 minutes it had finished.

Removed the C drive and replaced it with the new clone to assure all
had been done successfully.

Screen showed it was missing boot mgr.

Puzzling but I figured no harm was done so I replaced the new clone
with the original C drive and started the system.

Boot mgr missing.

Somehow both drives are now a problem.

Found a boot DVD and managed to get the computer to the BIOS screen.
Selected the old C drive as the place to start and the system
immediately went to the User sign on screen. After this everything ran
normally until I attempted to shut down the system and sign on as a
different user.

Boot mgr missing again.

So, now I can start only by using the boot drive in the DVD slot and
manually selecting the 0 drive (C) from BIOS. (There is no opportunity
to tell BIOS to start from C.)

I have Virus and Malware protection in place. This is a ASUS system
running Win 7.

Help, please.

Thanks.

swalker wrote:
A major screw up.

I have multiple (4) drive bays with two 2.5 inch SSDs normally in
place. One for the operating system and the other for data.

I clone either of the drives by shutting down the system and placing a
SSD drive in a 3rd or 4th bay.

Recently when I restarted the computer after adding a 3rd SSD and
before the sign on screen the drives became actively thrashing,
slowing the sign on screens appearance. After signing on to a user the
thrashing continues, consuming apparently all the resources because
although the system doesn't lock up, attempting to do anything takes
forever.

I have been using Acronis 2015 and found that it had started a log
when I signed on and thought perhaps it or something else was
attempting to sync the drives. Looked through Win 7 and found the Sync
Center had no partnerships and finally decided that Acronis must be
the problem. Removed Acronis (difficult) from the system.

Shut the system down and downloaded Macrium Reflect and proceeded to
clone the C drive to an old C drive that I keep for that purpose.
Things appeared to go normally and after 40 minutes it had finished.

Removed the C drive and replaced it with the new clone to assure all
had been done successfully.

Screen showed it was missing boot mgr.

Puzzling but I figured no harm was done so I replaced the new clone
with the original C drive and started the system.

Boot mgr missing.

Somehow both drives are now a problem.

Found a boot DVD and managed to get the computer to the BIOS screen.
Selected the old C drive as the place to start and the system
immediately went to the User sign on screen. After this everything ran
normally until I attempted to shut down the system and sign on as a
different user.

Boot mgr missing again.

So, now I can start only by using the boot drive in the DVD slot and
manually selecting the 0 drive (C) from BIOS. (There is no opportunity
to tell BIOS to start from C.)

I have Virus and Malware protection in place. This is a ASUS system
running Win 7.

Help, please.

Thanks.

Place only the device with OS you wish to fix in
the computer. Only have that drive cabled up.
Then try the Startup Repair from the DVD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...up-repair.html

That should ensure there is a "System" partition somewhere on
the drive.

"System" partition (so-called) is the Microsoft term for "boot stuff"
"Boot" partition (so-called) is the Microsoft term for the "OS partition"

The BCD file stored in /Boot, contains the details
of what to boot with. And part of the startup repair,
would be ensuring the BCD is correct.

The "System" partition should have the boot flag set.
A Windows MBR boot code, looks for the partition
with the boot flag, as an indicator of where to
start.

On Windows 7, a default install on a blank hard drive,
gives two partitions. A System Reserved partition
holds materials for booting. The C: partition holds the
rest.

If you format the hard drive first, create an NTFS partition,
it's also possible to point the installer at that partition,
and have it install "System", "Boot", and boot flag, all
on the one partition. That would not support BitLocker
full partition encryption, but it would allow booting with
a minimum of wasted partitions. My laptop is set up
that way.

Disk Management tells you where the various things are
located, but this won't help you if the system will
not boot. So unfortunately, you cannot use it to
review a broken setup.

*******

This is intended to give you some idea of the
components of booting.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/927392

bootrec /FixMbr -- puts 446 bytes of boot code into sector 0

bootrec /FixBoot -- puts boot code in the "System" partition
which makes it look for winload.exe etc.

bootrec /RebuildBcd --- rebuilds the BCD file in the "System"
partition as /Boot/BCD. You can use
bcdedit later, to add other OSes.

That's not the sum total of things needing repair,
but it's a start. The automated repair is likely to
do more than that, like perhaps run CHKDSK on the
partitions at some point. Startup Repair records
how many times consecutively it has been run,
and has a unique approach for the first three tries.
After three tries at repair, you're "cooked".

I managed to break C: badly enough, that I had
to restore Win7 C: from a backup. So I've actually
tried the Boot Repair myself. The third pass is
the longest, as it reads every sector on C:, trying
to repair NTFS (even if the symptoms don't suggest
it would help anyway). I was lucky I had a fresh backup
made on the same day for escape.

There are now a number of tutorials and pages with
sample commands, to do a lot more with "bcdedit"
program. For example, you can boot from the DVD,
and use "bcdedit" to edit the contents of a BCD
on an existing hard drive. The command has
enough options it can operate on the BCD it
was booted with, or it can be made to edit
the BCD on some other OS partition. When bcdedit
first existed, there was virtually nothing to go on.
Now there are a lot more examples of how to use
it when in trouble. You can even enter "Safe Mode",
by adding a line to the BCD with bcdedit. That can
tell the booting OS (an OS that has otherwise been
booting normally), to boot into Safe Mode on the
next try.

bcdedit /store D:\boot\bcd /enum --- command to get the identifier

bcdedit /store D:\boot\bcd /set {identifier} safeboot minimal

HTH,
Paul

On Sun, 27 Dec 2015 00:22:05 -0500, Paul wrote:

Paul,

Thanks for taking the time to give me the option for recovering the
C drive.

I am sort of a buttons and suspenders type of guy and have a C drive
that was cloned about a month ago. Looking over this I think my
fastest way to get this behind me is to get that older C drive from
the vault and install it. I need to get back to my normal work
schedule.

Given that almost all my data is on another physical drive I don't
have to worry about that. I will have some drivers that are missing as
I recently added a 3rd video card but I can work through that.

Acronis is on that old C drive and I won't have to install it again. I
have no idea how the bootmgr got trashed while doing the clone with
Reflect but I will not be using that program again even though it was
almost certainly my fault.

The problem of the "apparent" sync between the drives will return
which I have to track down.

Any ideas where I might look?

Thanks again & Happy New Year.

Jim



swalker wrote:
A major screw up.

I have multiple (4) drive bays with two 2.5 inch SSDs normally in
place. One for the operating system and the other for data.

I clone either of the drives by shutting down the system and placing a
SSD drive in a 3rd or 4th bay.

Recently when I restarted the computer after adding a 3rd SSD and
before the sign on screen the drives became actively thrashing,
slowing the sign on screens appearance. After signing on to a user the
thrashing continues, consuming apparently all the resources because
although the system doesn't lock up, attempting to do anything takes
forever.

I have been using Acronis 2015 and found that it had started a log
when I signed on and thought perhaps it or something else was
attempting to sync the drives. Looked through Win 7 and found the Sync
Center had no partnerships and finally decided that Acronis must be
the problem. Removed Acronis (difficult) from the system.

Shut the system down and downloaded Macrium Reflect and proceeded to
clone the C drive to an old C drive that I keep for that purpose.
Things appeared to go normally and after 40 minutes it had finished.

Removed the C drive and replaced it with the new clone to assure all
had been done successfully.

Screen showed it was missing boot mgr.

Puzzling but I figured no harm was done so I replaced the new clone
with the original C drive and started the system.

Boot mgr missing.

Somehow both drives are now a problem.

Found a boot DVD and managed to get the computer to the BIOS screen.
Selected the old C drive as the place to start and the system
immediately went to the User sign on screen. After this everything ran
normally until I attempted to shut down the system and sign on as a
different user.

Boot mgr missing again.

So, now I can start only by using the boot drive in the DVD slot and
manually selecting the 0 drive (C) from BIOS. (There is no opportunity
to tell BIOS to start from C.)

I have Virus and Malware protection in place. This is a ASUS system
running Win 7.

Help, please.

Thanks.

Place only the device with OS you wish to fix in
the computer. Only have that drive cabled up.
Then try the Startup Repair from the DVD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...up-repair.html

That should ensure there is a "System" partition somewhere on
the drive.

"System" partition (so-called) is the Microsoft term for "boot stuff"
"Boot" partition (so-called) is the Microsoft term for the "OS partition"

The BCD file stored in /Boot, contains the details
of what to boot with. And part of the startup repair,
would be ensuring the BCD is correct.

The "System" partition should have the boot flag set.
A Windows MBR boot code, looks for the partition
with the boot flag, as an indicator of where to
start.

On Windows 7, a default install on a blank hard drive,
gives two partitions. A System Reserved partition
holds materials for booting. The C: partition holds the
rest.

If you format the hard drive first, create an NTFS partition,
it's also possible to point the installer at that partition,
and have it install "System", "Boot", and boot flag, all
on the one partition. That would not support BitLocker
full partition encryption, but it would allow booting with
a minimum of wasted partitions. My laptop is set up
that way.

Disk Management tells you where the various things are
located, but this won't help you if the system will
not boot. So unfortunately, you cannot use it to
review a broken setup.

*******

This is intended to give you some idea of the
components of booting.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/927392

bootrec /FixMbr -- puts 446 bytes of boot code into sector 0

bootrec /FixBoot -- puts boot code in the "System" partition
which makes it look for winload.exe etc.

bootrec /RebuildBcd --- rebuilds the BCD file in the "System"
partition as /Boot/BCD. You can use
bcdedit later, to add other OSes.

That's not the sum total of things needing repair,
but it's a start. The automated repair is likely to
do more than that, like perhaps run CHKDSK on the
partitions at some point. Startup Repair records
how many times consecutively it has been run,
and has a unique approach for the first three tries.
After three tries at repair, you're "cooked".

I managed to break C: badly enough, that I had
to restore Win7 C: from a backup. So I've actually
tried the Boot Repair myself. The third pass is
the longest, as it reads every sector on C:, trying
to repair NTFS (even if the symptoms don't suggest
it would help anyway). I was lucky I had a fresh backup
made on the same day for escape.

There are now a number of tutorials and pages with
sample commands, to do a lot more with "bcdedit"
program. For example, you can boot from the DVD,
and use "bcdedit" to edit the contents of a BCD
on an existing hard drive. The command has
enough options it can operate on the BCD it
was booted with, or it can be made to edit
the BCD on some other OS partition. When bcdedit
first existed, there was virtually nothing to go on.
Now there are a lot more examples of how to use
it when in trouble. You can even enter "Safe Mode",
by adding a line to the BCD with bcdedit. That can
tell the booting OS (an OS that has otherwise been
booting normally), to boot into Safe Mode on the
next try.

bcdedit /store D:\boot\bcd /enum --- command to get the identifier

bcdedit /store D:\boot\bcd /set {identifier} safeboot minimal

HTH,
Paul

swalker wrote:


The problem of the "apparent" sync between the drives will return
which I have to track down.

Any ideas where I might look?

Thanks again & Happy New Year.

Jim

About all I can suggest, is remove a single drive from
that computer, and work on the drive using another
computer. You want a controlled set of circumstances,
where the drive will not thrash, you can run CHKDSK,
reassure yourself all partitions are functional and
so on.

You can get Kaspersky Rescue CD, which can run an
offline AV scan. I think Bitdefender makes one as well.
You can boot the computer, and scan the individual
partitions with this. (Not that the thrashing
is likely to be a virus. This is just a chance to
observe the disks in a benign environment.)

http://support.kaspersky.com/8092

Paul

On Sun, 27 Dec 2015 22:26:06 -0500, Paul wrote:

swalker wrote:


The problem of the "apparent" sync between the drives will return
which I have to track down.

Any ideas where I might look?

Thanks again & Happy New Year.

Jim

About all I can suggest, is remove a single drive from
that computer, and work on the drive using another
computer. You want a controlled set of circumstances,
where the drive will not thrash, you can run CHKDSK,
reassure yourself all partitions are functional and
so on.

You can get Kaspersky Rescue CD, which can run an
offline AV scan. I think Bitdefender makes one as well.
You can boot the computer, and scan the individual
partitions with this. (Not that the thrashing
is likely to be a virus. This is just a chance to
observe the disks in a benign environment.)

http://support.kaspersky.com/8092

Paul

It must have been the very late night after a long day that dulled my
mind because when I shut the computer down for the night I opened a
drive door and inserted the "bad" clone.

This morning when I started the computer I assumed it would go to the
BIOS but instead the computer started normlly. The usual thrashing of
the drives occurred but everything ran normally.

A little confused I shut the system down and removed the "bad" clone
and started the system, which started normally.

So from a state where neither of the drives alone would start normally
I now have at normal machine.

Go figure.

About the thrashing. I am going to take a look at Everything and see
if it is indexing the spare drives when I start the computer with them
in place. There are setting to not do that but maybe because the 2
drives have the same name, ie "C" or "D", maybe there is a bug.