# Active Partition Not Found After HDD Switch- Windows 7



## Cpetrie

Hello All,
      Here is the rundown:
1. Installed Windows 7 on a new 90GB Agility 2 SSD.
2. Shutdown Computer
3. Disconnected old HDD (HDD1), which contained a previous Windows 7 Install.
4. Connected a another HDD (HDD2) which was a storage drive when I had Windows 7 Installed on HDD1.
5. Powered on Computer
6. After the BIOS screen I received the message: "Active Partition Not Found - Press Any Key"
7. The Troubleshooting
     a. Checked Boot Order
     b. Tried every combination of SATA and Power cables between the two drives.
     c. Completely Disabled and Unplugged HDD2
     e. It kept booting to the CD drive when I unplugged HDD2, even if I removed it from the boot menu. So I unplugged that too. Then I just said "System Disk Not Found.
8. Finally, I plugged the old HDD1 back in and it booted up fine.
9. Please advise.


----------



## johnb35

Your boot files is on drive 1 and not your ssd.  You will need to fix this by removing drive 1 and repairing windows 7 with just the ssd drive attached.


----------



## Cpetrie

I removed drive 1 and ran the Windows 7 setup disk. I ran the Startup Repair utility and the root cause it found was "Partition Table does not have a valid System Partition." It then said it would load (or did load) the Partition Table and that _if_ it was repaired, the system would boot. It did not, it tried to boot to the Windows 7 disk. I removed the disk, reconnected HDD1 and booted back up. Another thing I noticed was that it was referred to as "Unknown operation system on (Unknown) local disk." When I selected the repair utilities menu, I also noticed that the drive was not listed, and it suggested loading the the drivers for the disk if it was not listed, do you think this is something I would have to do? Thanks for your help thus far.


----------



## johnb35

Since you just installed windows on the ssd, you must not have any data on it that needs backed up.  I would suggest reformatting and reinstalling windows onto the ssd.  Another possibility is that with the ssd, you are running in ahci mode and would need the sata controller driver installed at the beginning of the windows installation.


----------



## Cpetrie

I see, well, by "just," I mean it's been about two weeks, so there is a fair amount of tedious configuration and programs installed. I am having a little difficulty surmising what the alternate option is to a reformat/reinstall. Is AHCI mode a PNP mode for drives if you don't have their specific drivers installed? If so, does that mean I would have to install the drivers and then run the repair utility? Sorry for the confusion, my knowledge does not extend far beyond savvy and Google.


----------



## johnb35

Go into your bios and see if the sata controller setting is on ahci, raid, or IDE.


----------



## Cpetrie

Sorry for the delayed response, AHCI Mode is set to disabled in the BIOS.


----------



## johnb35

Try following the steps here.



http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/36367-invalid-system-partition.html


----------



## Cpetrie

When I attempted to select the disk I received the message, "The Disk you specified is invalid."


----------

