Windows SSD ghosting question.

pc-guy · 29 Jul 2020 at 00:31

Basically I have windows on NVMe, I used Macrum to make a ghost copy of it onto a SATA SSD through USB. I used it as backup. But when I install the SSD UEFI refuses to accept the SSD as boot drive (with the NVMe drive removes). I didn’t have the USB recovery drive.

Is this common issue? First time using NVMe but I expect it to be plug and play as normal.

bremen1874 · 29 Jul 2020 at 01:09

Do you mean that you copied a working windows install from one NVMe drive to another using a SATA drive as an intermediatory and have found that it fails to boot from the target NVMe drive once installed?

Mcnumpty2323 · 29 Jul 2020 at 02:07

Did you image it?
Or clone it?
One is bootable the other isnt

pc-guy · 29 Jul 2020 at 02:21

Clone the boot drive.

plugged the SSD in a few days later as a test no boot.

TBH I think I know what went wrong is that my first attempt, I left the SSD and the NVMe drive both plugged in as I needed to pull files off the NVMe. Then I tried to remove the NVMe and leaving the SSD and it just refused to work.

in the past, when I had SSD cloned, they were competent swappable. Just a bit ofd that it is not the case with NVMe

Mcnumpty2323 · 29 Jul 2020 at 08:04

Yeah sounds like a boot record issue
If the boot record has 2 drives in it
Then it will look for the 2nd drive
Bootrec /fixmbr
Bootrec /fixboot
Bootrec /scanos
Bootrec /rebuildbcd
Any or a combination of those from cmd
May fix the error

pc-guy · 29 Jul 2020 at 08:24

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Yeah sounds like a boot record issue
If the boot record has 2 drives in it
Then it will look for the 2nd drive
Bootrec /fixmbr
Bootrec /fixboot
Bootrec /scanos
Bootrec /rebuildbcd
Any or a combination of those from cmd
May fix the error

I did the above tried to rebuild the boot record. Using /fixmbr cmd simply returned failed or no mbr found.

anyway just curious if someone had similar issues. I have reinstalled everything so gonna give this cloning process another go and have a recovery USB ready as well

bremen1874 · 29 Jul 2020 at 10:01

Mcnumpty2323 said:
Did you image it?
Or clone it?
One is bootable the other isnt

It doesn’t matter whether you clone or image and then restore. I use Macrium to image my drives everyday. There’s no problem restoring one of those images (to the original drive or a replacement) and then booting from it.

Journey · 29 Jul 2020 at 10:07

You cloned the whole disk or just the single partition that Windows resides on? There are 3 partitions that Windows creates a recovery partition, the 100MB EFI Boot partition, and the actual partition where Windows is stored.

pc-guy · 29 Jul 2020 at 11:28

Journey said:
You cloned the whole disk or just the single partition that Windows resides on? There are 3 partitions that Windows creates a recovery partition, the 100MB EFI Boot partition, and the actual partition where Windows is stored.

cloned the whole disk which has multiple partitions with UEFI, the boot partition and system installed on it

Journey · 29 Jul 2020 at 11:56

pc-guy said:
cloned the whole disk which has multiple partitions with UEFI, the boot partition and system installed on it

In the Macrium rescue boot environment, run the Redeploy tool on the new disk/partition with Windows on it, should fix your problem. If you are running the free version then it won't be there/be greyed out.

Are you running the SATA disk that you cloned to in ACHI mode? Going from an NVMe UEFI boot device to a SATA based AHCI disk means that sometimes you'll need to enable CSM.

pc-guy · 29 Jul 2020 at 12:34

Journey said:
In the Macrium rescue boot environment, run the Redeploy tool on the new disk/partition with Windows on it, should fix your problem. If you are running the free version then it won't be there/be greyed out.

Are you running the SATA disk that you cloned to in ACHI mode? Going from an NVMe UEFI boot device to a SATA based AHCI disk means that sometimes you'll need to enable CSM.

I am indeed using the free one. I got full version of acronis now with my new NVMe drive so will use that to clone. not sure what setting is SATA on will check.

Mcnumpty2323 · 29 Jul 2020 at 15:47

bremen1874 said:
It doesn’t matter whether you clone or image and then restore. I use Macrium to image my drives everyday. There’s no problem restoring one of those images (to the original drive or a replacement) and then booting from it.

Yeah I know probably worded it badly
Was 2am or something lol
I meant if you imaged it directly to the new drive
Ie you just saved an image file to it
Rather than save an image then use macrium to load it to the drive