Windows 10: M.2 drive is failing, can't clone. Can I use the hidden partitions from May 2022 with...

I thought my motherboard was screwing up, but it turns out my SSD NVMe M.2 has been bad all along. So I can't clone from it now, even using Ubuntu or Clonezilla. I painstakingly copied everything to a SATA drive, directory by directory, and replaced files that couldn't be copied from a backup I made in May of 2022. So I have a hopefully complete copy on a SATA drive, and the backup I made in May. I bought a new NVMe drive, and am cloning the May backup to it. The plan is to then replace the C partition with the one I made this weekend on the SATA drive. So, I know the hidden partition

:)

 

M.2 SATA to NVME clone: Windows 10 won't boot

Problem: Windows partition won't boot after cloning M.2 SATA drive to M.2 NVME. Simply returns to BIOS splash screen are restarts boot sequence.

Background: Cloning process was simple raw dd copy. Drive had EFI, Windows 10, and Linux partitions. Cloning preserved exact partition sequence, sizes, and UUIDs.

Linux partition needed minor tweaks to /etc/fstab due to the device names being different (/dev/nvme0n1px vs. /dev/sdax), but boots fine.

The disk is GPT, and I believe the original Windows 10 was UEFI - the Linux installation definitely was.

Boot sequence brings up Linux 'grub' menu first. Choosing the EFI partition then brings up Windows EFI boot menu. Fresh Windows install (see below) boots fine from here, old install fails.

Attempts at solution: I did a fresh Windows install in a spare partition and it boots fine. Using the new Windows installation, I've edited the BCD entry for my original Win 10 install. I have
the correct BCD device, osdevice, and path.

Questions:

• What else needs to be done to make Windows boot again?
• Are there any config file or registry changes that need to be made to account for the SATA to NVME move?
• How do I see boot error messages for a UEFI boot failure? No errors displayed and no log files that I can find in Windows or EFI partitions...

 

Failing HDD and Cloning

Programs like Tera Copy can be useful for such tasks since they provide faster copying and they have a list of processed files. If it fails, you know instantly what file failed and you can also resume or restart file copy/move operations. Tera Copy is a free program so give it a try.

Cloning is for drives that are in perfect mechanical/electronic condition but have a corrupted partition or parasitic virus infection. You clone the drive and then you can repeatedly perform data salvaging tasks without the risk of degrading data and making it unrecoverable forever. If recovering fails, you just restore the drive and start all over.

Something you can't afford on failing drives, because they will interrupt the data cloning process. And when it fails, you have to do it all over again.

 

partition cloning help!

Well I just bought a SATA seagate 320gb 7200.10 hard drive. I had to get a power adapter, but anyway. It's in as Drive F (did disk management). Now all I want to do is clone the partition from my old hard drive to my new hard drive. Copy windows and everything else over on my new hard drive, take out my old drive and then use the new drive as the primary C drive. I have norton ghost, and partition magic. I heard ghost is much better. Could someone tell me step by step how to accomplish this? I think I know how, but I do NOT wanna take any chances here..