Windows 10: I made a clone of my C drive on another disk. How do I point the MBR to it?

Hi, I have an SSD disk 1 and a HDD disk 2.The C:/ drive was on disk 2, but I cloned it copy-paste the partition using gparted in Ubuntu onto disk 1.I marked the clone as active and removed the original partition, but now my windows doesn't boot anymore.bootrec.exe /scanos recognizes 2 windows drives, but startup repair isn't able to fix anything.How would you proceed? I'd like to boot Win10 and use the cloned C drive on disk 1.P.S. there is also a Basic data partition NTFS, EFI system partition, Microsoft reserved partition on drive 2. And some ubuntu stuff but that's not relevant I su

:)

 

clone MBR HD to bootable GPT partition?

Hi,

1. You cannot convert mbr to gpt without data loss. otherwise, you can follow directions here:

FROM WINDOWS RECOVERY CONSOLE:

To change a master boot record disk into a GUID partition table disk using a command line

• 
  Back up or move the data on the basic master boot record (MBR) disk you want to convert into a GUID partition table (GPT) disk.
  
• 
  Open an elevated command prompt (right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as Administrator) and type diskpart. If the disk does not contain any partitions or volumes, skip to step 6.
  
• 
  At the DISKPART prompt, type list disk. Make note of the disk number you want to convert.
  
• 
  At the DISKPART prompt, type select disk <disknumber>.
  
• 
  At the DISKPART prompt, type clean.
  

2. I'd suggest converting your vista drive to a virtual machine, load that up on your windows 10 system and use a program like virtualbox to run it.

 

Cloning to SSD then swapping drive letters


@SamHobbs
What you want done is very simple and can be done in short period of time. Here's my suggestion:
There's 2 modes that Windows can be installed: UEFI and the old legacy MBR. Open Disk Management, look at the disk where your C drive is, if there's a

1. EFI System Partition, your Windows was installed using UEFI.
2. System Reserved partition, your Windows was installed using MBR

Next, Connect your SSD to an available Sata port (no need to format or do anything). Download: Macrium Reflect Free . Install and run. Follow the steps below:

1. From Macrium, click on image this disk under your C drive and save it to either an Internal or External Drive. This will create a single backup image of the whole disk containing your C drive.
2. Again, from Macrium, click on Restore tab and select the image created from step 1, Select your SSD as the destination drive, click Next->Finish
3. Exit Macrium. If your Windows was installed using MBR, Open disk management and make sure the SSD is marked "Active" else go to next step.
4. Shutdown your PC. Disconnect the HD containing Windows C drive then connect your SSD to it.
5. Reboot. Your PC should boot and the Windows should have C as the drive letter.

NOTE: The procedure above is to backup your Windows to an image file then copy it back to the SSD. This ensures proper cluster size aligment for the SSD. In addition, Macrium also perform Trimming for the SSD. This is more preferable than cloning.

 

Cloning Drive C:/

I bought a new hard drive so I could clone my main hard drive. The new drive was formatted after putting into an external hard drive bay connected using USB cable. I right clicked on my C:/ drive & chose copy. I then right clicked on my new hard drive F:/
and chose paste. It then started to copy C:/ to F:/, but it eventually failed saying I wasn't authorized to access certain files even though I'm the Administrator of my computer. It also said I had a bad sector on C:/ drive. I then reformatted C:/ & tried
to make a clone drive onto F:/. All that did was copy over ...

$RECYCLEBIN, Boot, Recovery, System Volume 1, bootmgr, BOOTNXT, BOOTSECT.BAK

It appears to me that all it did was make a boot disk in case C:/ drive failed to boot I could have the computer boot using drive F:/ which is not what I wanted. I already have drive E:/ for that in the same bay housing as F:/.

What I want is an exact clone of C:/ drive, every program & file on it!

Anyone got any suggestions?