Windows 10: Image restore to different hard disk doesn't boot.

I've been swapping out Windows 10 and Windows 7 on my desktop using Macrium Reflect (free version) image backups and restores to the same disk for more than a year without any problem. However, today I restored the last saved Windows 10 backup image to a newly acquired disk (same model and size as the old one - Samsung 1TB) using a hot swap rack. The restore ran normally and completed but hung during the boot up process. NO error message, just the spinning dots display. I tried earlier backup images and Media Rescue disks to no avail. I'm now suspecting that the disk might have a problem, but curious as to how the restore process appears to work ok - any ideas as to why the restore cannot boot ?

:)

 

Restore points were deleted

The whole idea of backing up is to copy your data to somewhere that's not on your computer. That way, if your computer gets damaged, you won't lose your data. A USB drive is inexpensive and easy to use: Just plug it into a USB port and you're ready
to go. After you've made your image, you can remove the USB drive and store it somewhere safe.

You can certainly use Windows' own disk image creator if you want. I'm only saying that third party software is easier to understand and has many more features than the built-in utility.

An image is an exact copy of a hard disk, so if you make an image of a boot-able hard disk, and you restore that image to a hard disk that won't boot, you will again have a boot-able hard disk.

But you should know that hard disks can fail to boot for many reasons that an image can't fix. For example, if your hard disk is physically damaged, or if your BIOS or UEFI is corrupted, restoring an image won't fix that.

 

Have trouble/s restoring an System Image Backup of Windows 10

The WindowsImageBackup folder doesn't show up in the restore, despite moving it to the root or even at the different partition of local hard disk.

 

A possibility is that you modified some physical hardware on the computer that Windows is having a hard time being able to recognize, since it wasn't there before. Does this apply?

 

No mods to the computer other than adding the removable disk rack and switching SATA data & power cables from my old disk to the rack. The old disk boots and works fine in the rack. When I get another set of cables, I can put the old disk with Windows 7 on it back in its original fixed location - allowing me to run diagnostics on the new disk.