Cloning - wrong drive letter to boot?

TechnoMage2021 · Aug 28, 2023

"The trouble with an image is you can't get files from it."
Au Contraire mon fraire! You CAN, if you use the correct program. And I've been using 'The Correct' program since 1997.

There is a time and place for every kind of backup. An image can be taken from just one partition on a drive with many partitions, while a Clone can only copy an entire drive, and requires an entire drive to write to. If you're making Images, many can be stored on a LARGE HD. I do that every week.

The reason y'all keep having these ridiculous problems is because you're using the wrong program. So STOP using a program that is so poorly written that it is constantly giving problems.

I've been cloning drives and making Backup Image Files with the same program since 1997, with narry a problem.
My clones have always booted up a PC just fine, when installed on the lowest numbered HD port. IDE or SATA made no difference.
Just the word CLONE itself, means it's an EXACT copy of the original disk, and should boot up a PC exactly like the original did.

My favorite way of installing Windows 11 on a new PC today, is to make a clone on a new drive, off of my main PC, and then install it on the new PC.

Life can be simple if you don't make it hard!

TM

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

TechnoMage2021 said:
"The trouble with an image is you can't get files from it."
Au Contraire mon fraire! You CAN, if you use the correct program. And I've been using 'The Correct' program since 1997.

There is a time and place for every kind of backup. An image can be taken from just one partition on a drive with many partitions, while a Clone can only copy an entire drive, and requires an entire drive to write to. If you're making Images, many can be stored on a LARGE HD. I do that every week.

The reason y'all keep having these ridiculous problems is because you're using the wrong program. So STOP using a program that is so poorly written that it is constantly giving problems.

I've been cloning drives and making Backup Image Files with the same program since 1997, with narry a problem.
My clones have always booted up a PC just fine, when installed on the lowest numbered HD port. IDE or SATA made no difference.
Just the word CLONE itself, means it's an EXACT copy of the original disk, and should boot up a PC exactly like the original did.

My favorite way of installing Windows 11 on a new PC today, is to make a clone on a new drive, off of my main PC, and then install it on the new PC.

Life can be simple if you don't make it hard!

TM

I can understand Macrium being crap, but I cannot understand Windows not being able to find itself on the only damn drive in the computer!

fixer · Aug 28, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
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.

So opening up your computer, physically removing the main drive, fitting and connecting the clone and closing everything back up again is easier than than just booting to a flash drive and restoring a file (your image) from your backup drive???? You need to educate yourself on using Macrium, especially imaging.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

fixer said:
So opening up your computer, physically removing the main drive, fitting and connecting the clone and closing everything back up again is easier than than just booting to a flash drive and restoring a file (your image) from your backup drive???? You need to educate yourself on using Macrium, especially imaging.

If you read carefully I was talking about a disk failure. So the disk has to come out.

And yes, physically swapping a drive is way quicker than waiting for a data copy.

Winuser · Aug 28, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
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.

What you read is not even close to being true. Most or should I say a large number of us put Macrium as being #1. EaseUS is a good program though. On my new (main) desktop I make backups with Aomei Backupper, EaseUS Todo And Macrium. They are all good backup programs and have helped me a few times. I also have Ashampoo Backup Pro 15 installed. I forget why I stopped using it. As you can see from all of my backup programs how important my new (main) desktop is to me. If you ever want to give Macrium another try, remember that we are more than happy to help walk you through the whole process. For me it will have to be about making and restoring an image.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Winuser said:
What you read is not even close to being true. Most or should I say a large number of us put Macrium as being #1. EaseUS is a good program though. On my new (main) desktop I make backups with Aomei Backupper, EaseUS Todo And Macrium. They are all good backup programs and have helped me a few times. I also have Ashampoo Backup Pro 15 installed. I forget why I stopped using it. As you can see from all of my backup programs how important my new (main) desktop is to me. If you ever want to give Macrium another try, remember that we are more than happy to help walk you through the whole process. For me it will have to be about making and restoring an image.

There are many complaints about Macrium and none about EaseUS, so obviously it is true. Maybe not for you, but it is for me and a lot of people on the internet. I'll use EaseUS. It's always worked for me and I see nobody complaining either. I see no point in trying to fix what has a working alternative.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 28, 2023

Another possibility....

The drive I was trying to clone to has "2% remaining life". I've never known an SSD do that, they usually just die suddenly with about 90% left. I've never known one drop anywhere near that low. Can that percentage drop really fast if there's a fault? The amount of writes to it is much smaller than another (although newer, perhaps more rugged) SSD.

The offending drive is a Crucial MX500 500GB with 2% life left, data written 118,944 GB.
Another drive is a Western Digital WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0 1TB with 94% life left, data written 69,804 GB.
From those numbers, the Crucial should not be down to 2%, it should be more like 80%. Do older drives really wear 5 times quicker?

If I try to install windows fresh on the Crucial, system files get corrupted.

I'll still try one day to make sure Macrium is working ok.

fixer · Aug 29, 2023

Lamberto Vitali said:
If you read carefully I was talking about a disk failure. So the disk has to come out.

Yeah, I had missed that - sorry. If I did have a disk failure I'd certainly consider using a clone - if I had one! - though with the only disk failure I have had - years ago - I did choose to restore an image instead.

Seems the cloning issue you had wasn't being caused by Macrium so after donkey's years of using it without a single issue at all I'd certainly encourage you to take another look at it. You can extract files from an image btw, you have the option to mount the image as a drive in Explorer.

SIW2 · Aug 29, 2023

That seems odd. I assume your cloning software would have checked the health of the source and target before proceeding.

Hadn't you noticed it before ?

Smaller disks have lower endurance.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 29, 2023

fixer said:
Yeah, I had missed that - sorry. If I did have a disk failure I'd certainly consider using a clone - if I had one! - though with the only disk failure I have had - years ago - I did choose to restore an image instead.

Seems the cloning issue you had wasn't being caused by Macrium so after donkey's years of using it without a single issue at all I'd certainly encourage you to take another look at it. You can extract files from an image btw, you have the option to mount the image as a drive in Explorer.

I will be testing at some point to make sure it can work, I have a working SSD I'm not using I can try it with.

SIW2 said:
That seems odd. I assume your cloning software would have checked the health of the source and target before proceeding.

Hadn't you noticed it before ?

Smaller disks have lower endurance.

It was 500GB, but it was only about 1/3 full. All the computers process science stuff 24/7, and one of the projects does a fair amount of disk writing, but when I occasionally look at the disk wear, they're always at 90% life remaining or above. This one must have dropped suddenly. Mind you being Crucial, they tend to really suck. Their earlier ones would stop being recognised by the BIOS, and you had to upgrade the firmware, which needed them to be recognised, so you had to turn it on and off 50 times in vague hope. I had one of them play up right out of the box.

SIW2 · Aug 29, 2023

If endurance ratings are important to you:

The manufacturer quotes 1700 tbw for the corsair mp510 960gb disk which is almost three times the quoted 600 tbw for your Wesetrn digital sn550 1 tb.

https://www.corsair.com/uk/en/p/data-storage/cssd-f960gbmp510/force-series-mp510-960gb-m-2-ssd-cssd-f960gbmp510

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 29, 2023

The WD seems to be ok, it's only used 4% life in I think a year or so. It will need upgrading to a larger one before it wears out. I bought it due to price and speed. I never thought of longevity, I'll bear that in mind with my next purchase, thanks. Even though it will be upgraded, having 10 computers mean they get handed down.

I assumed they all used the same technology so longevity would be similar? Bare in mind you're comparing a new one with 2 year old tech.

SIW2 · Aug 29, 2023

Endurance is not similar. The corsair mp510 endurance rating is far higher than the WD disks. The technology is not the same. The corsair nand and controller is different and has a big endurance advantage.

For anybody that wants maximum efficiency and low power consumption, the sk hynix p31 is streets ahead of all other nvme gen3 disks. Quoted endurance is also better than most (750 tbw for the 1 tb disk ) , but still nowhere near the corsair mp510. The technology is not the same.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 29, 2023

I thought they were all on nand now.

SIW2 · Aug 29, 2023

There are different types of nand and differences in the way they are formed, and the number of layers, there are different controllers and firmware, there are differences in the number of channels employed and so on.

That has consequences for factors such as endurance and power efficiency. The differences can be very large.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 30, 2023

I often have them fail well before their expected lifetime. Far less reliable than the rust spinners. Kinda like the first LED lightbulbs. Power efficiency doesn't concern me since the CPU and GPU eat way more power.

glasskuter · Aug 31, 2023

BootManager looks to the BCD Store configuration data which is stored in the EFI system reserved partition. That's all well and good if one has only one disk. I learned something the hard way that might help others.

If more than one GPT disk is installed in a system, Windows will install the configuration data that BootMgr requires on the first EFI partition it sees. (SEES is the key word here)

Disk assignment (at least in my Dell) is not always straightforward and is dependent on the disk configuration in some systems.
My system drive (nvme) is Disk 1 and data drive (HDD configured as gpt) is Disk 0 (stupid Dell). When Windows was installed on the NVME , this bootmgr configuration data ended up being on the wrong disk. I found this out when my data drive became noisy so I removed it. My Windows would not boot. Put drive back in, Windows booted. I ended up putting my replacement drive into a dock, restoring an image of the original drive, and then replacing the noisy drive.

Unless one knows for sure that his system drive is recognized as Disk 0 it is key to always either configure additional disks as MBR, OR, remove all non-system disks before installing windows. That forces the install process to put BCD Store on the system drive EFI partition as that is the only one it will see..

I surmise that some of the boot issues folks run into is related somehow to such a scenario, but I'm not smart enough about it to argue the point one way or another. I only know how much research I had to do to figure out the why of my problem.

Lamberto Vitali · Aug 31, 2023

glasskuter said:
Disk assignment (at least in my Dell) is not always straightforward and is dependent on the disk configuration in some systems.
My system drive (nvme) is Disk 1 and data drive (HDD configured as gpt) is Disk 0 (stupid Dell). When Windows was installed on the NVME , this bootmgr configuration data ended up being on the wrong disk. I found this out when my data drive became noisy so I removed it. My Windows would not boot. Put drive back in, Windows booted. I ended up putting my replacement drive into a dock, restoring an image of the original drive, and then replacing the noisy drive.

Your first mistake, buying a Dell. Never ever buy anything which uses proprietary sshit. Why reinvent the wheel?

I have seen that nonsense before, with earlier Windowses. In disk manager, the list of boot, crash dump, system, whatever they are, was split across two drives. I can't remember what I did to sort it. Maybe I never bothered. I have a vague recollection of a reinstall over the top and a week of tedious fixing all my settings and screwed up programs.

Would you believe we're in the 21st century now?

Lamberto Vitali · Sep 20, 2023

Update - I didn't get round to testing clones as I promised, but another machine failed. I cloned a similar machine to a brand new fresh SSD using Macrium Reflect, and the exact same problem occured - blue screen "unable to find winload.exe". I tried cloning again using EaseUS, and it worked!

Macrium Reflect is broken, very very broken, it can't perform a simple clone of a Windows 11 system disk.

Yes, Windows is stupidly not finding the boot details on the only disk on the system, but we all know Windows is stupid. But there's no excuse for Macrium doing it wrong when EaseUS does it right.

For anyone reading this, DO NOT USE MACRIUM REFLECT, it does not work. USE EASEUS.