Replying to Avatar Keith Mukai

It is not possible to clone a Windows C: drive and boot from the clone. Oh, plenty of info will say it's possible, but it's not.

It is not possible.
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Kieran 2y ago

You can clone the drive and boot it, but i has to be the entire disk, use Acronis or some other Disk imaging tool and then just write the clone on the other disk and it should work, though windows licenses will usually become invalid

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sudocarlos 2y ago

careful trying to boot with both drives still in the system. some cloning software clones the uuid of the drive and it can confuse your mobo/bios

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Keith Mukai 2y ago

Did full disk clone w/a few diff tools. Problem seems to be:

(orig setup)

C: on SSD1

UEFI + D: on HDD1

(clone's setup)

C: on new nvme

UEFI + D: on HDD1 (unchanged)

* Will not boot

Tried adding UEFI partition to new nvme, unplugged SSD1 and HDD1. Nope.

Tried adding UEFI partition to SSD1, then cloning to nvme. Nope.

Basically... just gonna nuke it from orbit and install a fresh Windows 10 on the new nvme with no other drives connected. Then I'll be guaranteed to have a self-contained UEFI + C: universe on the nvme. Then will back HDD1 as a data drive and wipe its UEFI partition.

ps - I hate that I know any of this. I didn't want to learn about any of this.