Windows 10: Odd Win 10 Clone Failure to Boot

I've done dozens of Macrium Reflect boot drive backup and restore operations and found that it almost always just works. I've always done this on Legacy BIOS / MBR drives though. An odd issue has cropped up on my first GPT/UEFI attempt. I believe my clone/restore process is correct, per discussion in another thread where I misunderstood what the problem was.

The short version is:

1. I set boot firmware to UEFI only and clean-reinstalled Win 10 Pro (v.2004) on a freshly wiped m.2 SSD.
   RESULT: This creates a GPT partitioned boot drive.
2. I did basic OS setup and installed some software. Then backed it up to a file with Macrium.
3. I restored all partitions from that file to an external USB using Macrium (including resizing the C: drive).

RESULT:
The cloned external drive is a successful boot drive for other computers in my house. However, it will not boot the computer that it was cloned from.

The error I get is "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE", though I know there is no hardware-level connection issue, as the drive works reliably for everything else under the same undisturbed connection.

I know this computer will boot from external USB (both USB key and SSD) as I installed the OS to an external SSD from USB-key installation media, and ran that OS for a bit while testing things. However, I also have an external Linux boot drive that works on every other computer except this one.

I have disabled every security-related UEFI setting I could find. But it seems like something must be detecting that the OS is on a different drive than installed and blocking it.

Any ideas?

:)

 

Win 10 1809 to 1903 Failure And Odd Issue Found

No listing under MSConfig Boot tab / not sure what to do

Similar there.
You are missing an EFI partition too. Here's mine (1903) - note the 99Mb EFI partition:



- noting the Recovery partition is NTFS - not sure where the idea in that thread about FAT32 comes from.

Here are all the partitions - Disk Management omits the 16Mb one:




In the thread I quoted- not the most straightforward- it seems one basic step taken was to
a. Image 'C: '
b. Clean install Windows
c. Replace the new Windows partition by restoring it from the image created
d. (Note when rebooting, this may sort itself out via automated repair, or need Startup repair to be run)

If you search for
msconfig boot empty
or
msconfig boot empty "Windows 10"
you will find numerous references which may help.

 

Clone disk won't boot

I cloned my Win 10 system and cannot boot on the new Hard drive. I used Acronis to perform the clone.

 

Win 10 boots...

I can't answer to the speed of Win-8 booting. I tried the Win-8 preview and went back to Win-7 after a month. They say that Win-8.1 is a lot better than Win-8 was.
My Win-10 TP is working well ATM.