Tried cloning my storage - crazy stuff of nightmares

sand_dune · 25 Apr 2019 at 13:45

A while ago I tried doing just that to clone my storage after buying a new SSD drive.

I have a laptop Asus FX504GM that had a hard drive and M.2 SSD. i bought a bigger SSD and thought to clone the existing SSD into the HDD and then into the new SSD.

I downloaded some free cloning app from the internet, started the cloning process, it needed to restart the PC and started cloning data before Windows would boot. It took the right amount of time to do so and reported process completed.

I removed the old SSD and tried booting into HDD. No system disk. I then replaced the old SSD and tried booting into that with HDD present - no system disk. I then removed the HDD and tried booting into the old SSD that had always worked before - no system disk.

I then created a windows install on a USB drive and installed that into the new SSD and I don't exactly remember how many times I tried different combinations, but windows would install but not work with the HDD present in the system would also permanently disable itself on the SSD once the HDD is present. It's some crazy stuff! To clarify - I install windows on SSD then add HDD and it would blow it all, I remove HDD still no system disk.

I'm now afraid to put anything else into the laptop as it is currently working with just an SSD and a fresh windows install.

I suspect this crazy behaviour though unforgivable can be fixed by taking the HDD into my very old laptop starting a windows XP install and clearing the partitions in the beginning of setup. The partitions didn't look right for a system disk to me.

But what the hell why would my windows would permanently get killed after I insert the HDD?

lurkio · 25 Apr 2019 at 14:03

hmmm , I probably would have done it by
1. Creating a clone image of my M.2 SSD current drive onto an image file on an external USB drive
2. Removed my old M.2 SSD drive and put in my new M.2 SSD drive
3. Loaded up the clone software and plugged in my USB drive, then used the donor image and loaded this image onto the new M.2 SSD

Rebooted and tha should be that
I use acronis for doing such things

sand_dune · 25 Apr 2019 at 15:47

What I can add - Win 10 boot drive consists of several partitions, something like 3. That HDD even after the cloning attempt only contained 1 partition. That was suspicious to me. I've no idea if windows can work from 1 partition or not. Whatever was written into it was KILLING my windows disks making them inaccessible. But anyway I now dug up my old laptop and found XP installation CD with the help of that I deleted that partition in HDD and created a new one. I've put this HDD into my new laptop and it is still working and seeing 2 disks, like it should.

The question remains how a bootable disk can become forever unbootable?

lurkio · 26 Apr 2019 at 20:04

sand_dune said:
The question remains how a bootable disk can become forever unbootable?

1. Boot sector becomes wiped or corrupted
2. The partition that contains the boot files etc is either corrupted , damaged or no longer present

When cloning a drive you clone the entire drive and "record" it to an image file (this contains the exact drive including all partitions and data on that drive)

bledd · 28 Apr 2019 at 10:14

lurkio said:
1. Boot sector becomes wiped or corrupted
2. The partition that contains the boot files etc is either corrupted , damaged or no longer present

When cloning a drive you clone the entire drive and "record" it to an image file (this contains the exact drive including all partitions and data on that drive)

Yup,

Cloning can be a strange beast at times.

lurkio · 28 Apr 2019 at 10:22

I have imaged /cloned / re-imaged 1,000's of drives, only time I have ever seen it go wrong was a damaged drive

Django x2 · 28 Apr 2019 at 11:39

You've altered the boot loader so bcedit is probably your friend.

Personally, now, I'd hirens my ass in there, forget the cloning and just restore what files I can from the original SSD.

Out of interest, what was on the HDD when the original SSD was in there?

Dave Burton · 30 Apr 2019 at 09:31

I encountered a similar issue, and it was due to not cloning the hidden boot and OS partitions, only the main "data" partition. Once I had cloned all 3 partitions, the drive booted fine.