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Cloned HDD does not boot Windows - help

H

HardBob42

n00b
Joined
Nov 28, 2006
Messages
30
I used Macrium Reflect to clone my Windows 10 HDD. If I try to start with the cloned HDD (same computer, same cable connection, original HDD disconnected) Windows does not boot. It instead gives me an error about the Windows installation.

Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong?
 
When you created the clone image, did you properly set the software to clone the boot sector MBR as well as the rest of the disk?
 
If you destination drive was in an external enclosure it usually won't boot correctly when you transfer it to the inside of the computer. If this is a laptop and/or you have no choice but to use an external enclosure, put the source drive in the enclosure and the target drive inside the computer. It'll usually work right that way.
 
Something else too. Make sure the version of Macrium can clone a Windows 10 drive. I ran into a similar problem when I tried to use an older version of Acronis to clone a Windows 8 drive. No matter what I did it wouldn't work.
 
I ran into the same issue with Linux. Problem was that Linux recorded the drive's unique ID into the boot config (grub) file -- so then it didn't match the drive it was cloned onto. Maybe Win10 does something similar? But I'm pretty sure Win7 had no problems with drive cloning and booting.
 
Spartacus said:
Had this same problem when restoring a Win 10 image, this fixed it:

Boot with bootable disk that can see your Win 10 boot drive. I used Win8PE Gandalf.

http://windowsmatters.com/2013/04/30/windows-8-based-pe-boot-disk-with-explorer-shell-and-all-my-favorite-apps/


Launch the command prompt

Enter the following commands one at a time hitting Enter after each command.

bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot

Reboot computer after the final command finishes
Click to expand...

Thanks. After the third command it asks me if I want to make the drive active. If I say yes, then it says element not found.

On the 4th command it also says element not found.
 
auntjemima said:
I believe fixboot and fixmbr have to be run first.
Click to expand...

Thanks, but that did not work (still element not found).

Also, before I started using Win8PE, when I was wanting to run Windows repair somehow my main HDD is now no longer detected as a boot device ARGH.
 
Well, if the boot loader partition is not marked active on your drive, that would explain why it isn't booting.
Can you download Gparted AMD64 ISO from the http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/0.24.0-2/?

What you can do is have both drives connected, boot the Gparted CD, Review the partition structure of the original drive, and make sure the cloned drive matches that structure (especially the flags on each partition). Once that is fixed / verified, try to boot again, if you still have problems, run the bootrec commands previously posted.

Edit: if you have problems now with your original drive booting, then I make sure the ~100mb partition that is probably partition #2 (if I had to guess) is marked as active / boot on the flags.
 
CVNet1 said:
Well, if the boot loader partition is not marked active on your drive, that would explain why it isn't booting.
Can you download Gparted AMD64 ISO from the http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/0.24.0-2/?

What you can do is have both drives connected, boot the Gparted CD, Review the partition structure of the original drive, and make sure the cloned drive matches that structure (especially the flags on each partition). Once that is fixed / verified, try to boot again, if you still have problems, run the bootrec commands previously posted.

Edit: if you have problems now with your original drive booting, then I make sure the ~100mb partition that is probably partition #2 (if I had to guess) is marked as active / boot on the flags.
Click to expand...

I have marked partition 2 which is ca 450 MB as active but it still says no operating system found.
 
I cloned my Win7 drive with Gparted. But it didn't put the 'boot' attribute on it. Once I did that (again in Gparted), windows still didn't boot but atleast I got an error message. So I booted with the Windows disk and chose "repair installation" and that fixed it.
 
If you're using GPT on a UEFI system, any of the stuff regarding to MBR installations won't do you much good. Quick google search should bring you a list of software capable of helping you if that is the case.
 
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