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Dasher

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Win7 to Win 10 Upgrade - No bootable media

Win7 to Win 10 Upgrade - No bootable media after final reboot into new Windows 10.

Hi!
1. Windows 7 - boots up fine
2. Insert Windows 10 USB and run upgrade from Win 7 Desktop
3. Windows 10 Upgrade seems to go just fine.
4. As the system reboots into what should be the 1st boot into Windows 10, I get a NO BOOTABLE MEDIA message.

NOTES:
** Drive (SSD) IS VISIBLE in BIOS in the Hard Drives area
*** Drive is NOT VISIBLE (but used to be) in the BOOT MENU

Seems like I need to do something to the boot sector.
I've had this happen several times now on various systems.

Any ideas?

Thanks!
-- Dasher
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fred hakim
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You can use lazesoft suite to check the boot areas on the drive.  It has tools to repair common boot issues.  Download the suite and create a bootable media on  USB or DVD.  The boot from the media.  Options are pretty obvious from there.  

See:  https://www.lazesoft.com/
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noxcho
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it seems to come from the August 2019 update - see the fix here :  https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/8ed77c5c-fe56-431a-a1b2-812b5333ef46/august-2019-update-caused-a-boot-problem?forum=w7itproinstall

For now, it's recommended to uninstall it first:
1. Boot into WinRE and open command prompt.
2. Run DISM /Image:C:\ /Get-Packages > packages.txt to get the list of packages.
(Note: please replace C with the system drive )
3. Find the August update and it's package identify.
4. Run DISM /Image:C:\ /Remove-Package /PackageName:<Package Identify you got from the text> to remove it.
5. Reboot and check the symptom.
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Dasher

ASKER

Thanks - I'll check some of these.

One of the issues we found was, as stated above, a BIOS / MOBO issue.

After the upgrade...The mobo decided it didn't like the SSD, or the new Windows Boot Manager or something....I put the same drive into a different (OLDER!) pc with a different mobo and it booted right up!

I have tried a variety of AHCI / Legacy IDE options - no difference.
I couldn't set it to 1st bootable because the drive priority / boot options didn't see anything - it just comes up blank, but the BIOS DID see it as a drive...

I'll see if I run into it again - we just did 20 more win7 > 10 Upgrades and they all went well -- Used Win10 1903 off a USB stick after copying Win7 to an SSD.

Cheers.  :-)
i believe a system restore can help also from your W10  install stick - select the advanced options
If bios can see the drive, but it does not appear in the bios boot order, then its very likely that something in the boot area or partition setup is messed up.   If you downloaded the Lazesoft suite I suggested above, and created the bootable media, you can look at the partitions using the partition manager.  Check to see if that one of the partitions is marked as active.   Bios would be looking for that.

I'm surprised the Lasesoft boot repair options wouldn't have caught that.
try hooking the drive to a working system -  and cleanit with disk part, then do a fresh install

1.      Boot windows installation from USB drive
2.      Press Shift+F10
3.      In console type diskpart.exe and press enter. In this program execute following:
1.      select disk=0. Disk 0 is your destination drive, so be careful, all information on this drive will be removed.
2.      create partition primary size=xxx, where xxx – is the size of new partition
3.      select partition=1
4.      active
5.      format fs=ntfs quick
6.      assign
7.      exit, now you have bootable drive C
4.      Navigate to USB flash drive, in my case: cd d:
5.      Copy all files from USB drive to C: drive: xcopy d: c: /e /h /k
6.      Go to boot folder: cd boot
7.      Make you C: drive bootable with following command: bootsect /nt60 c:
8.      Put off USB drive from computer and restart them.
9.      Install Windows
10.      Remove unnecessary menu item from bootscreen:
1.      Run cmd.exe as Administrator
2.      See boot menu list bcdedit
3.      Find Windows Setup and copy identifier
4.      Run bcdedit /delete {identifier}
From http://druss.co/2014/07/fixed-setup-was-unable-to-create-a-new-system-partition-or-locate-an-existing-system-partition-during-installing-windows-8-18-7-vista-etc-from-usb/
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ASKER

Hey!
Just some info and finding before I close this out.
1. Fresh Install to blank disc seems to work fine -- it's upgrading from Win7 that makes the disk "disappear".

2. Several system I got to boot by changing BIOS from Legacy IDE to AHCI

3. The few that failed, I just dropped a clone in and that worked fine - although we have had one system where even that did not work. Customer is just going to get a new PC -- it was a Core2 Duo -- it had a good run!

Thanks for the comments!

- D
you posted
** Drive (SSD) IS VISIBLE in BIOS in the Hard Drives area
*** Drive is NOT VISIBLE (but used to be) in the BOOT MENU

when does this happen? a boot sector problem cannot cause this, - afaik it's the drive identification that shows or not
because you don't even get to the booting stage