Cloning - wrong drive letter to boot?

Scott · Aug 27, 2023

I've cloned half a dozen times without any problems. Two nights ago I used MR Free to clone a 1TB HDD to a 1TB SSD which booted up without issues. The SSD sure made a old i5 gen 2 Win10 computer seem like new. I made the clone in my System Two Win 11 computer.

Hope the OP can figure out his issue.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 27, 2023

Maybe the bug only occurs with MBR disks. If and when I have time I will try several combinations.

Scott · Aug 27, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
The trouble with an image is you can't get files from it.

You can actually

Lamberto Vitali said:
Also, you can't boot an image. How would you get a bootable drive from it? You'd need to install the OS first, then.... would it let you overwrite it?!

If you restore a system image to a blank drive, it becomes bootable.

SIW2 · Aug 27, 2023

You should be able get files from an image.

Vhd and wim images are easiest and have a lot of advantages over other formats.. Proprietary images can usually be accessed by the program that made them.

If you still have the clone, why not try to fix it?

It is unlikey ( but not impossible ) that the files were corrupted during the copying process. Much more likely the program you used for the clone did not make the necessary adjustments after the copy.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 27, 2023

Scott said:
You can actually

View attachment 69170

If you restore a system image to a blank drive, it becomes bootable.

That means having more drives. For example:
Drive 1: The system drive you're using.
Drive 2: Contains the image.
Drive 3: Sat doing nothing so you can restore to it to boot from when drive 1 dies completely.

Drive 3 isn't needed with clones, you just stick the clone in the machine.
Also, how do you restore the image with no running OS?

SIW2 said:
You should be able get files from an image.

Vhd and wim images are easiest and have a lot of advantages over other formats.. Proprietary images can usually be accessed by the program that made them.

If you still have the clone, why not try to fix it?

It is unlikey ( but not impossible ) that the files were corrupted during the copying process. Much more likely the program you used did not make the necessary adjustments after the copy.

I think I did try doing it again. Too long ago to remember now. It's overwritten now anyway. I got very annoyed with it and just did a reinstall, since the computer was one of two almost identical machines with only Windows and a couple of science programs on it. I was trying to create a copy of the good one to replace the one which had a dead SSD (those things give up so easily).

I tried the windows repair options it presented me with and couldn't believe even MS couldn't fix something so simple.

SIW2 · Aug 27, 2023

There are 3 basic steps. Whether the source is direct from a disk or the source is an image file.

1. Copy the data to the target
2. Correct the os letter volume value on the target
3. Correct the bcd entry on the target

I made a little thing for ease of repair.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Why does it go wrong in the first place and why can't windows do that simple fix?
I assume the boot fixer supplied by Acronis would do it.

Scott · Aug 28, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
Also, how do you restore the image with no running OS?

You can't restore an image from a running OS. That's where the Reflect recovery USB comes in handy.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Scott said:
You can't restore an image from a running OS. That's where the Reflect recovery USB comes in handy.

View attachment 69175

Sounds like extra hard work, hassle, and things to go wrong, I'll stick with cloning, then it's already made.

Winuser · Aug 28, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
Sounds like extra hard work, hassle, and things to go wrong, I'll stick with cloning, then it's already made.

And how is that working out for you? Doesn't sound like it's easy to me.Your totally wrong about Macrium images.

SIW2 · Aug 28, 2023

Use a reliable tool for the job. I often suggest diskgenius because the os migration function is very reliable and it is included in the free version.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Winuser said:
And how is that working out for you? Doesn't sound like it's easy to me.Your totally wrong about Macrium images.

Clearly it would be worse if I had an image, I just explained to you in plain English about the extra work required.

SIW2 said:
Use a reliable tool for the job. I often suggest diskgenius because the os migration function is very reliable and it is included in the free version.

I had no reason to believe Macrium was any worse then EaseUS.

Winuser · Aug 28, 2023

Winuser said:
And how is that working out for you? Doesn't sound like it's easy to me.Your totally wrong about Macrium images.

I'm reply to my post to add to it. I was at work and was in a hurry. If you have a Macrium image you can mount it and copy files and folders from it. I think the only thing you can't do is save any changes you make. You did a clone so I'm going to assume your computer is still booting into Windows. To install the image to your new drive you can make a Macrium rescue disk and boot from it. You can select the rescue disk from the BIOS or find the right F-key when you start the computer. The way I do it from a running OS is to hold the Shift key and hit Restart. You can also add Macrium to the boot menu. If you create the Win PE with Macrium You also should be able to do it from Macrium by selecting the source and the destination drive. Macrium will then ask you to restart the computer.

Winuser · Aug 28, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
Clearly it would be worse if I had an image, I just explained to you in plain English about the extra work required.

You cloned your drive and you can't get your computer to boot from it. Please explain to me how that's easier. I'll stay with using images when I need to restore or move my OS to a different drive. I can also expand the OS partition If I'm restoring to a larger drive.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Winuser said:
I'm reply to my post to add to it. I was at work and was in a hurry. If you have a Macrium image you can mount it and copy files and folders from it. I think the only thing you can't do is save any changes you make. You did a clone so I'm going to assume your computer is still booting into Windows. To install the image to your new drive you can make a Macrium rescue disk and boot from it. You can select the rescue disk from the BIOS or find the right F-key when you start the computer. The way I do it from a running OS is to hold the Shift key and hit Restart. You can also add Macrium to the boot menu. If you create the Win PE with Macrium You also should be able to do it from Macrium by selecting the source and the destination drive. Macrium will then ask you to restart the computer.

My point is in the worst case scenario, if my main computer has a failed system disk, and I have this image on a backup drive, I can't boot from it. I need to use another computer to copy it as a bootable disk onto another disk I don't have. Or fiddle with a rescue disk and hope you can make it work. Far easier if you just have a direct duplicate of the system drive you can plug straight in.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Winuser said:
You cloned your drive and you can't get your computer to boot from it. Please explain to me how that's easier. I'll stay with using images when I need to restore or move my OS to a different drive. I can also expand the OS partition If I'm restoring to a larger drive.

It's easier when it works and I've never had it fail before. All that changed is I used Macrium. Maybe Macrium is crap.

Winuser · Aug 28, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
My point is in the worst case scenario, if my main computer has a failed system disk, and I have this image on a backup drive, I can't boot from it. I need to use another computer to copy it as a bootable disk onto another disk I don't have. Or fiddle with a rescue disk and hope you can make it work. Far easier if you just have a direct duplicate of the system drive you can plug straight in.

You just need to make a Macrium rescue disk to boot from before it happens. USB flash drives are inexpensive today. If you decide to try it we are here to help walk you through it. The Windows OS doesn't need to be bootable. Everything you need is on the rescue disk. I use USB flash drives to make my rescue disk. I don't know where you're getting your info about Macrium images but you need to stop listening to them. Most if not all that you posted about the Macrium images is wrong. I have even went as far as to restore an image to a different computer. Windows 10 and 11 are very forgiving when it comes to drivers.

Winuser · Aug 28, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
It's easier when it works and I've never had it fail before. All that changed is I used Macrium. Maybe Macrium is crap.

Macrium is far from being crap. I can't explain why using Macrium to clone a drive works perfect for some and not for others. For me cloning has failed more than it succeeded. I've never had an image fail me.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Winuser said:
You just need to make a Macrium rescue disk to boot from before it happens. USB flash drives are inexpensive today. If you decide to try it we are here to help walk you through it. The Windows OS doesn't need to be bootable. Everything you need is on the rescue disk. I use USB flash drives to make my rescue disk. I don't know where you're getting your info about Macrium images but you need to stop listening to them. Most if not all that you posted about the Macrium images is wrong. I have even went as far as to restore an image to a different computer. Windows 10 and 11 are very forgiving when it comes to drivers.

But a clone makes it one step less to do. When you're trying to fix something, it's best to have less stages for problems.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Winuser said:
Macrium is far from being crap. I can't explain why using Macrium to clone a drive works perfect for some and not for others. For me cloning has failed more than it succeeded. I've never had an image fail me.

I'm going by what I've read all over the internet, no complaints about EaseUS, 50% of people having trouble with Macrium. I'm going back to EaseUS, it always worked for me, with old and new computers.