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AUR > cannot find an operating system on the current machine (after restore and restart)

Thread needs solution

Hello,

need some guidance please

- new laptop / new hardware
- new hdd (previous was HDD new is SSD)
- disimilar hardware

- used Acronis Universal Restore 2017
- restored succesfully whole partition (win10) + MBR
- recover disk signature > also checked (used)

Ater restore > restarted for driver search > cannot find an operating system on the current machine

previous was a dual boot (w10 + w7) if that matters

tryed new BIOS restore to default values which are (don't figure why so, for a 2017 laptop)
Legacy support > Enabled
Secure boot > disabled

tryed reverse also: Legacy support > Disabled  + Secure boot > enabled
got "Boot device not found. Please install an operating system on your hard disk. Hard disk (3F0)

Thank you

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Valentin, welcome to these User Forums.

Please review KB 58579: Acronis True Image 2017: Restoring to Dissimilar Hardware with Acronis Universal Restore to ensure that you have performed the correct actions required for migrating your Windows OS to different hardware.

You will also need to ensure that you are able to match the boot mode for your original Windows OS on the new laptop, that if the original uses Legacy/MBR boot, that the new does too.

Further, you need to match the disk controller mode being used by both computers, i.e. that both use SATA AHCI for example.  Some new laptops may be configured to use RAID for disk drives by default, even with only a single drive installed.

Next, depending on the type of disk used in the new laptop, then the boot media used may not have the necessary device driver support for the new hardware.  This applies mainly to the default Linux based Rescue Media which has no support for RAID or some newer NVMe M.2 SSD drives, where the alternative Windows PE version of the Rescue Media should be created and used.

Thank you Steve for your fast response.
I followed each step of the  review KB 58579:
BIOS related, would you care to take a look please? Maybe I missed something. Thank you

This is the origin

Attachment Size
444503-144872.JPG 659.1 KB
444503-144875.JPG 629.48 KB
444503-144878.JPG 574.02 KB

and this is the destination ( no SATA AHCI RAID options; it's a very light BIOS)

Attachment Size
444504-144882.JPG 493.32 KB
444504-144883.JPG 479.04 KB
444504-144884.JPG 473.04 KB

Valentin, I assume here that the original computer is still fully operational given your screen shots, so please can you verify the boot mode that Windows is using on that computer?

See webpage: BIOS Mode - See if Windows Boot in UEFI or Legacy Mode for information on doing this check.

My reason for asking this is that to me, your original system looks to be UEFI boot as shown on your first image = Windows UEFI Mode selected for the OS Type option.

If the above is correct, then your 3rd image for Boot from storage devices should be set to Both, UEFI first, as the Acronis bootable Rescue Media should be booted in the same mode as your Windows OS uses.

This also means, if correct, that your new laptop should also be set to use UEFI mode.

The SATA mode may still be an issue if this cannot be changed on the new laptop and is not also using AHCI mode.

- searched all the fields in first computer's BIOS, but no specific UEFI / Legacy boot Mode found  :(

- on the third picture I think that Legacy Oprom choice is due to the fact that it is a dual boot system (w7/w10) with w7 set to start as default

is anything that you would try on the new laptop?

Valentin, are you able to run the msinfo32 command on both computers?  This would confirm the OS BIOS mode on the first page that opens.

The Legacy Oprom choice is about bootable storage devices, i.e. USB sticks or Optical media as I understand it.  This should not affect that you have a dual boot system - the BIOS options are not in control of the choice of which OS you are going to boot.  With UEFI this goes to the Windows Boot Loader, which then uses the Boot Configuration Data to determine which OS to boot.

My own laptop is setup as triple boot, with Windows 10 Insiders, Windows 10 Fall Creators and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as the boot options in the BCD store.  My BIOS mode is shown as Legacy in the msinfo32 output but this is purely down to the age of the hardware being used which doesn't support UEFI.

For the new laptop, I would recommend going with Windows 10 rather than with 7 which only has around 2 years of support left.  10 has better support for newer hardware and if it came preinstalled / activated with 10, then you would be able to have the same OS without needing a new Windows licence.

One other comment here, when dealing with dual boot systems, there is still only one copy of the Boot Configuration Data store, this is normally on the Microsoft System Reserved or the UEFI partition, which would need to be included in the backup that you restore to the new hardware.  If you have only copied the Windows OS partition, then the BCD store may be missing.

The image below is for the first computer / the originator

The second one cannot be booted (but for this one BIOS states clearly Legacy Support / Secure Boot choice; at this moment Legacy Support is enabled).

Indeed Win 10 is my choice for the laptop, which I'm trying to "transfer" from the first computer

This just might be the clue, I guess: "If you have only copied the Windows OS partition, then the BCD store may be missing" How to troubleshoot this? If it was bootable I've could've use EasyBCD tool...

Attachment Size
444519-144888.png 60.78 KB

Valentin, thanks for the further image confirming the source computer is set for Legacy boot.

If Windows 7 was the first OS installed on the source computer and you later added Windows 10 as dual-boot, then the BCD will either be in the small Microsoft System Reserved partition or else within the Windows 7 OS partition.  

The presence of a Microsoft System Reserved partition depends on how Windows was originally installed?  If it was installed to a raw HDD with no file system present, then Windows creates the MSR partition to hold the BCD store.  If Windows is installed on a formatted drive then the BCD store is put on the same partition as the OS (in a hidden / system folder).

If you have just backed up and restored the Windows 10 partition to the new computer, then you would need to try to rebuild the BCD data.  

The first method I would try would be to download a copy of the Windows 10 installation software from the Microsoft Windows 10 site using the option for the Media Creation Tool.  You can create the media on DVD or else on a USB stick of say 8GB capacity.

Once you have the Windows 10 install media, try using this to do a Startup Repair and see if that is able to detect your restored OS and rectify the missing boot data etc.

See webpage: Repairing A Broken Bootloader Or Master Boot Record In Windows 7, 8, And 10 which shows some further options that you can use for this type of repair using the Windows 10 boot / install media.

Steve thank you so much for sticking with me in findind a solution to my issue. I owe you one, buddy!  :)

I unsuccessfully tryed to rebuild BCD as described here

After that it all sorted out (no rational explanation how it was possible) by making a fresh OS install (successfull + boot ok) and after that a new Universal Restore, in the same manner and steps - without exceptions - as I previously did (also successfull + boot ok)

 

Valentin, that is good to hear that you have found a working solution to this issue. Thank you for the feedback.