Cloned NVMe drive unbootable using newest AOMEI Backupper

I am in the process of finally migrating all my apps over to a newly assembled Asus ROG Strix-H pc. I've been a 20+ year user of Backupper and had to purchase their newest version over the web. My Strix motherboard has a total of 5 NVMe slots so I thought it would be easy cloning a spare NVMe just to have for emergency purposes. Clone creation completed uneventfully with no unusual displays warning me of any abnormalities. No amount of cloning will give me a spare bootable NVMe drive. I event went so far as to putting this target NVMe in it's own external enclosure and attached with my type-C USB cable without success. Been on this for almost 4 days and emails to AOMEI have yielded nothing productive hence I requested a complete refund. Per chance is anyone using Backupper and able to successfully clone spare NVMe drives? Only thing I can think of is my primary boot NVMe drive (Windows 11 Pro) has both bit locker and encryption enabled during my initial o/s build.

My new build has nothing really exotic other than the Strix motherboard, 64GB of DDR5 memory, no video card other than the built in GPU on my i7 265k CPU, and a plain jane AIO cpu cooler. Everything else works fine and this includes my HP printer, Microsoft Azure client, and Microsoft office 2010. Thanks much everyone for help or advice!

Restoring image using an old copy of Macrium V8 will give you 99.9% success in "cloning" your OS. I just built one this week and restored an image from my old M.2 SSD and it boot up in one go.

While I have never used Macrium I "was" a desciple of Backupper until now. I can clone from NVMe to SSD but NOT NVME to NVMe leading me to believe it's AOMEI's cloning utility Windows 11 with bitlocker and encryption related. Instead of pointing fingers and casting blame I escalated my issue to AOMEI

I've cloned Windows 11 Pro drives many times. Zero errors with Macrium V8 free for personal use.
Follow their YouTube tutorial.

SWong said:

While I have never used Macrium I "was" a desciple of Backupper until now. I can clone from NVMe to SSD but NOT NVME to NVMe leading me to believe it's AOMEI's cloning utility Windows 11 with bitlocker and encryption related. Instead of pointing fingers and casting blame I escalated my issue to AOMEI

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Try it. It's free. You've got nothing to lose but time. Which I think you already lost a lot trying to fix your cloned OS. But first you need to image your old OS.

I've searched but cannot find any FREE trial copies of Macrium. Some of the forums even stated Macrium no longer provides trial copies. Am I incorrect?

Here's the way I would do it
Install the applications and create rescue media. I would disable bitlocker/device encryption and disable secure boot before creating rescue media or making an image. If I was going to clone I would do it offline using the rescue media. The Free version rescue disk will not boot with secure boot enabled. You can enable secure boot afterwards if you wish.
If the cloned disk will not boot, use the rescue media "fix boot problems" feature.

There's better options, for example: MultiDrive - Free Disk Cloning, Backup, Erasing Software

Rather simple to use and reliable...

Success! .... finally! My new pc built originally had Windows 11 Pro 64-bit installed via a bootable USB created by utility aptly named "rufus". During this o/s build Windows 11 included "everything under the sun" and much of absolutely useless to me simply bcause it's all bloat! I've been using AOMEI Backupper since Windows 7 and AOMEI was FREE but easy to use. Anyway, since I was already out $70 for my newly purchased copy of AOMEI I soldiered through and finally was able to finally create a cloned bootable NVMe but not without multitudes of bad cloned drives.

My new motherboard is a Asus Strix Z890-H with five M.2 slots and four SATA ports. During this new build I completed a clean Win 11 to a new WD 1TB NVMe, The key for me to successfully clone from NVMe-to-NVMe is to first clone to a 2-1/2-inch SSD then boot off this newly cloned SSD to a target internal newly partitioned NVMe. My only frustration is one of my 5 year old NVMe was defective hence troubleshooting with a defective part adds to my length list of frustrations. Do NOT attempt to clone a target on a "external" enclosure....it simply refuses to boot up. You must clone from a cloned SSD to a newly partitioned NVMe installed "internally" to the new motherboard. Don't ask me why....it just works!

I've been on this cloning issue over 72 (non-consecutive hours and it has been a learning experience. My last build was in 2008 when I was still actively working for a living. FYI, the only reason for this new build is to prepare for tax season 2026. TurboTax informed me their tax prep package "must" be installed on a Windows 11 platform hence my urgency in this new build. Learned a lot from this venture ..... hardware and software have changed dramatically. My worse problem on this upgrade was using a 25-year old Cooler Master tower instead of purchasing a current tower. Room is the issue since I no longer need these half dozen 5-1/4 inch bays. Upside is the fact this is my first AIO CPU cooler .... it's absolutely quiet versus using a cpu heatsink/fan combination. This build set me back $1200 but includes what I deem important to me .... something to last another 10+ years and repairable. If money was no object I'd would have gone with a motherboard which had a thunderbolt port, a dozen USB port hanging off the back, and a I9 285k but that's a posting for another time. Finally, I "was" a Asus desciple but no longer ..... Asus cheaped out on providing printed documentation and has gotten money hungry over quality. Intel I'm sad to say is slowly "circling the drain". Quality no longer matters!

take the bays out of your CM Tower I did with mine. easy, drill the rivets out. ..... I gave up on al the free backup and cloning, and partition software, I bought mine. The format may have been wrong, regardless.. catch them on sale... often the ssd makers give you free software when you buy the ssd. Downloads form their websites. IMHO

I too your advice Retiredat44 and just for giggles I went to the WD site. They had cloning s/w however I'm reluctant to download then use since I have no WD drives. Per chance have you ever gone this route?

SWong said:

I too your advice Retiredat44 and just for giggles I went to the WD site. They had cloning s/w however I'm reluctant to download then use since I have no WD drives. Per chance have you ever gone this route?

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so many times.... or else i wouldn't have said so