blue screen when boot from USB enclosure with a cloned Windows 11 SSD

rdwray · Nov 1, 2022

I have a USB enclosure with a cloned Windows 11 SSD in it, but when I try to boot from it, I get a blue screen.

Berton · Nov 1, 2022

Might help if others having experience when knowing how the clone was made. I haven't had any issue with internal drives I've cloned with the hardware way, drive dock with the cloning feature not connected to any computer while doing it, but I've not had success with wanting Windows to boot to an external drive. I think part of the issue may be that, until very recently and newer boards, the BIOS on the motherboard supported only USB 2 devices and the OS had to load drivers to get support for USB 3.

NavyLCDR · Nov 1, 2022

I've always done clean installs to USB drives. I think the problem with cloning an existing Windows 11 to a USB drive has to do with the disk controller drivers. I would setup the Windows 11 to boot into safe mode, then try the clone and see if it will boot in safe mode from the USB SSD.

rdwray · Nov 1, 2022

Berton said:
Might help if others having experience when knowing how the clone was made. I haven't had any issue with internal drives I've cloned with the hardware way, drive dock with the cloning feature not connected to any computer while doing it, but I've not had success with wanting Windows to boot to an external drive. I think part of the issue may be that, until very recently and newer boards, the BIOS on the motherboard supported only USB 2 devices and the OS had to load drivers to get support for USB 3.

With Macrium Reflect.

jimbo45 · Nov 2, 2022

Hi there
Have you attempted to re-install the bootloader. £ ways I think that can be done -- bcdboot, easybcd or use Macriun stand alone recovery "fix windows boot problems". My preference is BCDBOOT as it's pure windows but any of the 3 should work.

There's usually no problem running Windows from an external USB . Running from a multi-bay enclosure or RAID xx encliosure could be problematic but a single SSD in a USB enclosure shouldn't be an issue.

I run a load of Windows from an external USB

Cheers
jimbo

rdwray · Nov 2, 2022

jimbo45 said:
Hi there
Have you attempted to re-install the bootloader. £ ways I think that can be done -- bcdboot, easybcd or use Macriun stand alone recovery "fix windows boot problems". My preference is BCDBOOT as it's pure windows but any of the 3 should work.

There's usually no problem running Windows from an external USB . Running from a multi-bay enclosure or RAID xx encliosure could be problematic but a single SSD in a USB enclosure shouldn't be an issue.

I run a load of Windows from an external USB

View attachment 44009

Cheers
jimbo

No I haven't, I used it for dual boot system, but I don't want to mess with it in this situation. I can boot from a USB flash drive.

NavyLCDR · Nov 2, 2022

If you are getting a blue screen it has gone past the bootloader stage and has started loading Windows.

rdwray · Nov 2, 2022

If I plug the SSD into the PC it works without any issues.

NavyLCDR · Nov 2, 2022

rdwray said:
If I plug the SSD into the PC it works without any issues.

That's why I think it is a Windows disk controller driver problem. And why I think that setting Windows to boot into safe mode might be the solution.

rdwray · Nov 2, 2022

I am missing something; to boot from an external source, it has to be rebooted and go through BIOS and the mode of the PC has no effect on it.

NavyLCDR · Nov 2, 2022

rdwray said:
I am missing something; to boot from an external source, it has to be rebooted and go through BIOS and the mode of the PC has no effect on it.

The mode of the PC does matter. If your drive is set up as GPT with an EFI system partition on it, it will be impossible to boot it in legacy BIOS (CSM) mode. If your drive is MBR and has an NTFS system partition, many (if not most) computers will not boot from an NTFS partition in UEFI mode. However, since you are getting the blue screen, booting mode would not be the problem because Windows is starting to load. As soon as Windows gets to the point to where it is loading the disk controller driver it is failing because the existing disk controller drivers are looking for a PCIE device to boot from, and you have changed that to a USB device being booted from. The one hardware device change that Windows 10/11 does not like to automatically adjust to is disk controllers.

rdwray · Nov 2, 2022

NavyLCDR said:
The mode of the PC does matter. If your drive is set up as GPT with an EFI system partition on it, it will be impossible to boot it in legacy BIOS (CSM) mode. If your drive is MBR and has an NTFS system partition, many (if not most) computers will not boot from an NTFS partition in UEFI mode. However, since you are getting the blue screen, booting mode would not be the problem because Windows is starting to load. As soon as Windows gets to the point to where it is loading the disk controller driver it is failing because the existing disk controller drivers are looking for a PCIE device to boot from, and you have changed that to a USB device being booted from. The one hardware device change that Windows 10/11 does not like to automatically adjust to is disk controllers.

Rebooted into safe mode with the SSD plugged in. Rebooted and selected the SSD to boot from. Got blue screen. Tried startup repair and no success. The system is UEFI, and the boot partition is GPT and NTFS.

NavyLCDR · Nov 2, 2022

I'd have to try it on my system to see if deleting disk controller drivers would work.

rdwray · Nov 2, 2022

I made a "mistake", the boot partition is FAT 32.

jimbo45 · Nov 4, 2022

rdwray said:
I made a "mistake", the boot partition is FAT 32.

If booting from an external device -- I know others might have different opinions here but I've found the most foolproof way (and it always works) is to do the following.

1) On the external drive create an EFI partition (size=100 is big enough) and format it FAT32.

2) on the external drive create an NTFS partition at least a little bit bigger than the Windows system(s) -- you can have multiple if done this way)

3) create a vhdx partition for each windows system you want to boot -- this works whether on W11 HOME or whatever --no need to enable HYPER-V .

4) attach the vhdx partition

5) create a basic ntfs partition on it (leave as MBR).

6) If "cloning" a previous windows system just restore the image otherwise install your windows system from an iso image via dism /Apll-Image

7) IMPORTANT -- ON THE EFI PARTITION ON THE USB DEVICE ASSIGN A LETTER e.g S

8) assume the letter of the efi partition (on the USB device is S and the vhdx disk attached is W - now install the bootloader

cd w:\windows\system32

cd w:

bcdboot w:\windows /s S: f UEFI

Now simply boot (using the computers BIOS - choose the external USB device).

If you've more than one windows system on the external device you should see the familiar Blue Windows boot menu

Cheers

jimbo

rdwray · Nov 4, 2022

jimbo45 said:
If booting from an external device -- I know others might have different opinions here but I've found the most foolproof way (and it always works) is to do the following.

1) On the external drive create an EFI partition (size=100 is big enough) and format it FAT32.

2) on the external drive create an NTFS partition at least a little bit bigger than the Windows system(s) -- you can have multiple if done this way)

3) create a vhdx partition for each windows system you want to boot -- this works whether on W11 HOME or whatever --no need to enable HYPER-V .

4) attach the vhdx partition

5) create a basic ntfs partition on it (leave as MBR).

6) If "cloning" a previous windows system just restore the image otherwise install your windows system from an iso image via dism /Apll-Image

7) IMPORTANT -- ON THE EFI PARTITION ON THE USB DEVICE ASSIGN A LETTER e.g S

8) assume the letter of the efi partition (on the USB device is S and the vhdx disk attached is W - now install the bootloader

cd w:\windows\system32

cd w:

bcdboot w:\windows /s S: f UEFI

Now simply boot (using the computers BIOS - choose the external USB device).

If you've more than one windows system on the external device you should see the familiar Blue Windows boot menu

View attachment 44198
Cheers

jimbo

Thanks jimbo for the info, but all I was trying to do is test for ability to boot Windows from an external device. I have a couple of computers with dual OSs on them and have used bcdedit to set them up. Troubleshooting did not return any information.

God bless...