BSOD 7B if clone a PC on Active Directory?
We used to use Clonezilla to clone our PC's a few years ago, and that worked fine.
However suddenly cloning refused to work without warning on any PC, no matter the model. Upon trying to boot Windows there would be this annoying 7B BSOD.
After a serious amount of trouble shooting we found that we had to remove the PC from AD before cloning (even though for years it worked fine without this step and I can find nothing online saying you should need to do this).
Move on a couple more years and we now use MS BitLocker adding more pain to the process.
So I realise that True Image now supports BitLocker - great, so I'm now trying a trial of 11.7.
Backup process appears to work from Windows, and so does the restore using the bootable media - however it's the same problem, the 7B BSOD.
Now I assume it's going to work if I remove the PC from AD first, but this is now more painful as it needs to be backed up from within Windows, ideally while they are still using the PC.
So the question is, have you any idea what could have changed on our Active Directory to prevent a clone being taken and causing this 7B BSOD? We are wondering if our central IT pushed some setting out to prevent it and won't tell us - is that even possible?
Almost all of the clones are simply to upgrade the capacity of the hard drive without needing to reinstall.
Thanks!
Hello James,
I assume that your BSOD 7b error is a "BOOT DEVICE INACCESSIBLE" error? A couple of things you can check. Make sure that your machine BIOS is set for the correct SATA mode (ie. AHCI, IDE, RAID) for which the boot volume is configured. You should also check Device Manager for any exclamation marks associated with your storage controller drivers. While there you could select the drive controller for your boot disk, click on properties, driver, and choose Roll Back Driver, let Windows do it's thing and see if that changes the issue for you. If that solves it try updating the storage controller drivers to the latest version available from your device manufacturer. Of course this assumes that your IT has not locked you out of such access on your machine. If that is the case I would contact them with the problem and suggest that they update drivers for you.
Ditto to Enchantech. If you are cloning an existing system to new hardware, SATA mode in the bios must still be the same as was used on the original system the clone was taken from. This is a common BSOD if the original system was ACHCI in the bios and now RAID on the new system, or vice-versa.
FYI, cloning AD joined sytems is a bad idea. It can, does and will work. However, Active Directory can bet confused as it will see the system as being the same one in Active Directory. You should always take your "base" image from a sytem that was never joined to AD in the first place. Things like GPO's, etc, will also remain in the image, which can cause problems with future GPO updates/policy. Again, what you're doing will work - at least from a clone process. However, for network health and reliability, you may end up with issues in Active Directory due to non-unique system identifiers (SID's) and/or "unclean" GPO policy... even if running sysprep after deploying a clone.