How to copy Windows 8 to new drive?

[Naossoan]

Hi all,

I bought a new SSD to use as my primary boot drive (ADATA SX900 256GB).

A friend of mine told me to use CloneZilla and do a sector by sector copy of my current drive (Vertex2) to the new drive.

So I did this, and just told CloneZilla to copy the partitions from the source (Vertex2) drive as well.

This all seems to have worked just fine, as I can see both drives in Disk Managment and they have identically sized partitions, except I am not able to boot from the new drive.


When starting my PC I have many options....the ones of note:

Windows Boot Manager (OCZ Vertex 2)
OCZ Vertex 2
ADATA SX900

In the past, I have always had to use the Windows Boot Manager option for Windows to boot. If I just chose the Vertex 2, Windows would not boot.

How do I get the Boot Manager over to the new drive so I can use that as my primary drive?

Both drives are set up to use GPT as opposed to MBR.

I'm assuming this is why I am not able to reallocate/alter the size of the partitions in Windows Disk Management? I have 126.68 GB of unallocated space on the SX900 now that I would like to include in the main partition. The other thing of note is that the SX900 drive is not visible in Windows Explorer.

The other thing I noticed which I thought was strange was there is a 300 MB "Recovery Partition" and an "EFI System Partition" both of which are invisible in Windows Explorer but show up in Disk Management. Why did these partitions get created, and are they necessary? I asked my friend who also has Windows 8 if he had these partitions and he said no.

Thanks for your help!

EDIT: OK So I figured I would put in my Win8 boot USB and do an automatic system repair to see what it did. It said it couldn't repair any problems, but now I have Windows Boot Manager (ADATA SX900) that I can choose.

So now I go into Windows and I can access both drives in Windows Explorer. Vertex2 (c and SX900 (E). They are obviously identical.
I go into Disk Manager and I see that the Vertex 2 says "Healthy (Boot, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)" and the SX900 just says "Healthy (Primary Partition).
In Windows Explorer there is the little Windows icon next to the C:\ but not the E:\

So how do I know which drive Windows is actually using? How do I know that the Boot Manager located on the Vertex2 is booting from the Vertex2 and the one on the SX900 is booting from the SX900?

I guess I could just unplug one of the drives and see what happens....

Edit again: This doesn't work. The SX900 will not boot Windows. I get a message coming up in the Windows 8 style saying something along the lines of it can't boot and gives me one of those 0x000etc.etc. error codes, but it doesn't look like a BSOD screen.

How do I get my new drive to be the boot drive!? THANKS!!

 

[Bubbaleone]

First; cloning and copying are two different things. A sector by sector clone produces an exact duplicate of the original operating system including the boot sector, MBR and partition table data (or the GPT if the system is UEFI) for it to be bootable. Just copying the partitions won't include the boot sector, MBR and partition table data (or the GPT if the system is UEFI) which is just one of the reasons your SX900 won't boot. Second; you can't leave both the original and the cloned drive connected at the same time, unless you know how to edit the BCD (Boot Configuration Data), or use a third-party app like EasyBCD, to create a multi-boot menu. The reason for this is that (because they're clones) the GUID is identical for both drives and then the boot manager attempts to correct the problem by rewriting the BCD on one or both of the drives, which only compounds the problem since that always fails. This is the simple procedure for making your new drive bootable:

1. Perform the cloning operation from bootable media only.
2. Once you've booted into the cloning/imaging utility, select "sector by sector" as the method.
3. When the operation has completed, shut down the computer and disconnect the original drive.
4. Start the computer and boot the cloned operating system.

As previously mentioned; if there's some reason you need to have both identical operating systems in a bootable state, you'll first need to modify the BCD Store of the new drive to create a multi-boot menu then shutdown and reconnect the old drive. Now when you start the computer you can select which operating system you want to boot via the multi-boot menu.

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[Naossoan]

Thanks I will try it this way and see how it works. something else i noticed was there was an option to put Grub on the target disk.... Which I don't want. So I deselected that. It was on by default.

 

[Naossoan]

Hey that worked, I'm on the SX900 right now. Thanks!

One more question. Since I would like to re-use that Vertex until it dies...just for storage, maybe to record footage from MSI Afterburner or something like that so it saves really quickly, how do I wipe the drive if I can't have it plugged in during boot-up? Can I just plug it in while Windows is running and wipe it/format it that way?

Thanks

 

[Bubbaleone]

Nice!...Wipe the drive using only bootable media the same as you did for cloning. If I'm not mistaken, Clonezilla can also be used for drive wiping. And just to note: As GRUB is a universal boot manager (dominantly used in Linux distros) it would probably work but, I don't know for sure because I always use EasyBCD which is specifically written for Windows. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable with using GRUB to multi-boot a UEFI Windows 8 system will chime in but my preference for editing the BCD Store on Windows 7/8, to create a multi-boot menu, is EasyBCD.

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