Windows 10: HDD Cloning issues

Hello, I have tried to "clone" a laptop, UEFI/GPT, HDD using Macrium and AOMEI Partition Assistant and it seems to work fine, but the resulting "clones" are not bootable. Am I missing something? Thanks, Jim

:)

 

Clone a 1 Tb drive to a 512 Mb SSC

Hi Vaughn,

You can
clone larger HDD to small SSD with a professional disk cloning software as long as the used space is smaller than the SSD. You will not worry it will clone the unused space unless you use sector by sector clone mode.

I suggest you to clone your HDD to SSD with AOMEI Backupper, if the used space is larger than the SSD, you can clone only the OS to SSD and keep the HDD as data storage. This software is very easy to operate.

 

Replacing an existing Hard Disk by cloning

I've never used EaseUS, but AOEMI Partition Assistant works well for cloning Windows.

With AOEMI you clone only the C:\ drive, not the whole HDD/SSD.

Other partitions can be done via the backup option, or you can create new partitions later

via Windows Disk Manager and copy data directly to the partition.

I have never tried using a external drive via USB though (I have an e-SATA dock on my case, which is the same as connecting to a SATA port on the motherboard).

Using a USB may cause issues with the MBR not being written to the cloned OS drive, but this should not

be an issue if cloning back to the original HDD as the MBR on the original HDD should still be viable.

Free Partition Manager - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

Note that when doing a cloning operation you start with unallocated space on the HDD you want

to clone to, not a partitioned space.

.

 

Hello Jim,

Did you perhaps remove one of the old drives that had the EFI partition on it that managed the boot process? You might need to use your Macrium recovery disk to repair the partitions. See: http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/dis...+boot+problems

 

Hi phil, I had already used that wizard several times, but it never makes the clone drive bootable. Thanks, Jim

 

Hey, Jim. I typically opt for the image/restore route rather than the cloning route. You might want to try that to see if it works better. I know I am 2 for 2 on the image/restore route with Macrium so far - in both cases, I imaged (entire disk, all partitions) laptop HDDs to an external USB HDD, installed SSDs and then did a complete disk restore from the external and they both booted and were off to the races.

Any objection to trying that?

 

Yes try imaging and don't forget the EFI pasrtition. That's where your bootmgr is.

 

Hello okrobie
after you clone the laptop, you have to set the cloned HDD as the first boot device in BIOS, and you can get into the BIOS mode by clicking F8 key just after the start screen appeared.

 

The macrium suggestion should fix your problem. It will add boot files to your cloned OS.