Question Trying to move OS to new drive

[imported_blip]

My PC has one M2 slot, and my Win 10 is currently installed on a 128GB M2 drive. I just purchased a 500Gb drive and I'm trying to move everything over. I bought an external USB enclosure and used Macrium Reflect to clone my C drive over. It seemed to work, and the external drive showed up in File Explorer. The only option I changed was that I had to manually increase the size of the OS partition during the cloning, as the first time around Windows ended up seeing the new drive as only 128Gb.
I swapped the drives and started up, and got to the screen to select the boot device. The new drive was listed there, something like WD500 and Windows something or another. I clicked on it, PC restarted, 3 beeps, then 1 beep, then I got the Windows screen saying that it had not started and to restart. Did this a couple of times, then tried clicking on the different rest options but wasn't sure what to pick and didn't want to mess anything up.
Any idea what went wrong or the best way to fix this? I've switched back to my old drive which booted right up. I know some people recommend a fresh Windows install but that seemed like a bit of a pain to try and get all my drivers, programs, settings, etc. back to how I have them. I don't have a lot on there, but everything has been running fine.
I have a couple of other drives connected, so if I need to move program files or something over temporarily that would work. I didn't think I could just copy and paste them over once I had the new drive, I thought Windows might not see them correctly or something.
Thanks for any help you can provide!

 

[UsandThem]

You could try downloading a Windows 10 installer from Microsoft, and boot from it. Instead of selecting the install option, you can select repair.

Hopefully that will work, and it should be able to fix the boot issue.

 

[imported_blip]

You could try downloading a Windows 10 installer from Microsoft, and boot from it. Instead of selecting the install option, you can select repair.

Hopefully that will work, and it should be able to fix the boot issue.

Thanks, so should I install the new drive before I boot from the USB installer? Or can I repair it when it is in the external enclosure? Wasn't sure if I could repair Windows on an external drive while my internal drive also has Windows on it (although I won't be running Windows on my internal drive during the process right?).
Hope this makes sense thanks!

 

[deustroop]

Why have you used a usb enclosure to store the clone rather than pulling one of the other internal drives and connecting the new drive there ? An internal clone operation should work.
Also, I'm not sure you can boot windows from a usb enclosure.I know there is a 3rd party app to allow that, something about windows on the go but the version supported is very slimmed down--I think. I suggest if you need the usb arrangement then use Macrium to store an image there on one of your other drives. Image the current drive to the usb drive then install the new drive and restore the image to the new drive .

Backup, imaging and cloning - KnowledgeBase - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

 

[imported_blip]

Why have you used a usb enclosure to store the clone rather than pulling one of the other internal drives and connecting the new drive there ? An internal clone operation should work.
Also, I'm not sure you can boot windows from a usb enclosure.I know there is a 3rd party app to allow that, something about windows on the go but the version supported is very slimmed down--I think. I suggest if you need the usb arrangement then use Macrium to store an image there on one of your other drives. Image the current drive to the usb drive then install the new drive and restore the image to the new drive .

Backup, imaging and cloning - KnowledgeBase - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

I only have one M2 slot so I had to use the external enclosure to clone from my current M2 to my new one. I thought that once I swapped the drives it would be able to boot from the new M2 since they were cloned but it didn't work. I was worried about copying the image to one of my other drives thinking it would delete what's already on them. If I store the image on one of my SSDs, should I then boot using a recovery USB, then restore from my SSD? Not sure what to actually have on my new M2 when I'm doing all this. Thanks!

 

[Entangled]

My PC has one M2 slot, and my Win 10 is currently installed on a 128GB M2 drive. I just purchased a 500Gb drive and I'm trying to move everything over. I bought an external USB enclosure and used Macrium Reflect to clone my C drive over. It seemed to work, and the external drive showed up in File Explorer. The only option I changed was that I had to manually increase the size of the OS partition during the cloning, as the first time around Windows ended up seeing the new drive as only 128Gb.
I swapped the drives and started up, and got to the screen to select the boot device. The new drive was listed there, something like WD500 and Windows something or another. I clicked on it, PC restarted, 3 beeps, then 1 beep, then I got the Windows screen saying that it had not started and to restart. Did this a couple of times, then tried clicking on the different rest options but wasn't sure what to pick and didn't want to mess anything up.
Any idea what went wrong or the best way to fix this? I've switched back to my old drive which booted right up. I know some people recommend a fresh Windows install but that seemed like a bit of a pain to try and get all my drivers, programs, settings, etc. back to how I have them. I don't have a lot on there, but everything has been running fine.
I have a couple of other drives connected, so if I need to move program files or something over temporarily that would work. I didn't think I could just copy and paste them over once I had the new drive, I thought Windows might not see them correctly or something.
Thanks for any help you can provide!

Why clone, just reinstall on the new drive then after shuttle all your needed files off the other drive. You can have as many copies of win as you want associated with the same mother, but then my rig has room for 6 drives so I never used an external for win.

 

[deustroop]

An image is a file of a certain size . Saving it to a drive only requires that the storage drive have that amount of space. An image of the 128 gb drive will well result in a much smaller size file.
Install macrium on the 128 and store the 128s image on an internal drive.Attach the new drive. Boot to the PE usb which you create as macrium provides .Using the PE environment ,restore the image to the new drive.

 

[imported_blip]

Why clone, just reinstall on the new drive then after shuttle all your needed files off the other drive. You can have as many copies of win as you want associated with the same mother, but then my rig has room for 6 drives so I never used an external for win.

An image is a file of a certain size . Saving it to a drive only requires that the storage drive have that amount of space. An image of the 128 gb drive will well result in a much smaller size file.
Install macrium on the 128 and store the 128s image on an internal drive.Attach the new drive. Boot to the PE usb which you create as macrium provides .Using the PE environment ,restore the image to the new drive.

Hmm, I seem to be going around in circles a bit, may have tried too many different things at this point.
I had Macrium save an image to my other internal SSD. After swapping the drives, I got to the Windows Recovery screen, and found the option to restore from an image. But it wouldn't let me browse to my SSD to find the image. It had prompts about system images but it was like I had to do an official windows image for it to find it.

Then I decided to try a fresh install so I downloaded the Microsoft Media Creation tool and created a USB drive. Booted off of that and got to the Windows install screen. Chose the options, and it went throught the installation process, but then just rebooted and went right back to the Windows Install screen. I tried to reboot and point it to my new drive, but it just gave me an error that it couldn't find windows or the insert a bootable disk or something. One confusing part was that when it asked me where to install Windows, my new drive already has some partitions. I tried to delete to get down to 1, but maybe I did something wrong? Should I try and wipe my new drive first? It probably had a cloned image on it still, which I thought WIndows would just overwrite.

So, I shut down, put my old drive back in, and everything was like it was. Not sure what I'm doing wrong at this point, but I've rebooted many times and have lost the way. I thought this would be a bit easier! Seems like something many people would have to do when their old drives fill up.

Thanks again!!

 

[ElFenix]

i don't know exactly what your problem is but, if it's like mine, you'll have to go through bcdedit and bootrec in the command prompt to fix it. uefi just does not like windows not being on the drive it was expecting and you have to go through those tools to fix it. i'm (likely) about to go through this process again when i get a day so maybe i'll be able to offer more specific help soon.

 

[imported_blip]

i don't know exactly what your problem is but, if it's like mine, you'll have to go through bcdedit and bootrec in the command prompt to fix it. uefi just does not like windows not being on the drive it was expecting and you have to go through those tools to fix it. i'm (likely) about to go through this process again when i get a day so maybe i'll be able to offer more specific help soon.

That sounds similar. It just doesn't want to find Windows on a different drive. In the thread you listed people said that doing a Macrium clone was never an issue, so I thought this was going to be an easy upgrade. Ha. The cloning process is very simple so I'm not sure how I could be screwing it up. Might be easier to just buy a new Windows license at this point. Should at least pay for itself by saving me time and hassle. Thanks!

 

[Steltek]

That sounds similar. It just doesn't want to find Windows on a different drive. In the thread you listed people said that doing a Macrium clone was never an issue, so I thought this was going to be an easy upgrade. Ha. The cloning process is very simple so I'm not sure how I could be screwing it up. Might be easier to just buy a new Windows license at this point. Should at least pay for itself by saving me time and hassle. Thanks!

Buying a new Windows license is a waste of money - the same thing will happen again. You simply have an install issue you have to overcome.

What brand is the new 500GB m.2 drive you are upgrading to?

 

[imported_blip]

I figure there must be something I'm missing about all the UEFI stuff, a lot of which is over my head.

I finally was able to get a fresh Windows install. Here's what my final attempts included, and this is on a WD Black M2 drive:

--With Macrium, I saved an image of my old M2 to another internal SSD
--Using the Windows Media Creation tool, I wasn't able to find this image, as it asked for a network location but I couldn't browse my files
--Back in Macrium, I made a bootable rescue USB
--Booted from the USB, and it took me into the Macrium rescue program. In this, I could browse my files and pointed it to the image I had created
--I thought I had figured it out finally, as it loaded the image and rebooted, but it still wouldn't boot into Windows even after I changed my boot order, etc. It just kept going back to the blue Windows rescue screen. I don't know if there was some option in there that I could tell it I had loaded a new image or something, but it didn't work
--At this point I decided to give up on trying to save my Windows install, and just start fresh. So I went back into the "Rescue" screen and told Windows to restore. I now remembered that my old M2 drive had been pulled from a Dell build, and I saw a Dell Recovery partition on the old M2. I was going to try and remove that partition but was worried it would cause a problem. Windows then put me into the Dell SupportAssistant recovery environment. I tried to tell Windows to ignore the Dell stuff and just load Windows, but it kept going into the Dell program, so I just let it go.
--Rebooted to my new M2 drive, and was in a fresh Windows environment. Spent the afternoon installing updates, drivers, software, etc., killing Cortana and changing privacy settings, and removing bloat ware (so much). Still trying to get Minecraft to load previous saves for my kids, but Stardew Valley still worked last night so they were happy

This process also included lots of swapping of the M2 drives, which of course are tucked under my GPU since I have a mATX mobo, so pulled that out about a hundred times. I formatted, cloned, partitioned, wiped, reformatted, diskpart-ed, etc., my new M2 drive many times. By the end, I may have been causing more trouble but still was trying stuff.

Also, so many reboots. There were many times that my mobo splash screen would say it was repairing, or assessing or something, and I would get my hopes up, but then it would just go to the blue Windows recovery screen. And every time I booted from something other than my USB it would go to the black screen telling me to reboot or insert install media. I may have screamed at it a few times that "Windows is right there!" but that didn't work either.

Lots of factors involved, so not sure where I went wrong. Everything online and from folks here made it sound like cloning a drive was straightforward (which it was) and then you just boot back like normal (not so much). Maybe having the extra recovery partition gave me problems? I think I had 6 total partitions on my OS, and a lot of stuff online only showed 4 as typical, but I don't know enough about that stuff to make changes. I was also had to increase the size of my OS partition, as my initial clone left me with a 500Gb drive only showing 128Gb in File Explorer. So maybe I did something wrong there, too.

Thanks for the help, and maybe something here might be useful to someone else heading down this path!

 

[deustroop]

Glad you finally worked it out.