Forgot to copy NT signature on clone

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I am replacing a hard drive in my Vista home premium system and I forgot to check Copy NT Signature when I cloned the drive. Is there a way to just copy the NT signature rather than doing a full clone again? It took over 12 hours to complete and I need a simpler way. Any help would be appreciated.

Mon, 01/16/2012 - 22:09
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truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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You could use the Disk Editor. Check what the signature was on the source drive and then modify the clone to be the same. The signature is shown as Windows NT serial number when viewing the disk as a partition table (make sure to view the disk and not a partition). After you make the change, click into a different field to active the Save Sector button and then click it to save the change.

Note that if you've already booted the clone into Windows it will already have adjusted to the new signature.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 06:30
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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I have not booted it. I guess the question is can I just replace the old drive with the cloned drive without having to worry about the signature? Will it boot OK?

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 18:45
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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It depends on how the system is configured. At worst, the drive letter assignments would be wrong and Windows may fail to boot. You can fix that with DD, though.

Tue, 01/17/2012 - 22:15
truwrikodrorowrelupicugojestutroclulachosaswunuhospikigawakijosaswenomaruclojeueclikaspedrubewidebrisubrohutrurifruuagothunugekedrumucisiuobrobrecrupeslapuswosluprothethibakaslechurathikucli
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I have a similar issue. I am replacing the rotational HD in my PC with an SDD. I plan to use DD to clone the SDD from the rotational HD; but I don't want to copy the NT signature of the source. I plan to use the HD in an external drive enclosure and you can't have 2 drives with the same NT signature on the same PC.

I use Windows 8.1 64 Bit. The System and Boot volumes are on the C: (rotational HD). The Active (DBR_BOOT) volume is on a MyBook external drive E: I use UEFI Boot Mode. The boot sequence is E then C.

If I replace the HD with the cloned SDD, enable it as the C: drive and disconnect the MyBook E, do you think the SDD will boot up or will I need some other changes? Thanks for your input.

Fri, 05/22/2015 - 19:26