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Cloning does not work in Windows 8.1

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I need to clone my 8.1 hard disk for backup purposes. I have done that many times in the past for Vista using Acronis True Image 2009. I tried that tonight on my Windows 8.1 drive. The clone process goes all the way through but does not boot with the new drive. I then purchased Acronis True Image 2015 after reading that it is certified for Windows 8.1. I have the same problem.

Below is some of the information I could write down before my machine restarted.

Windows failed to start.....
File: \Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The boot configuration data for ....

The source and target disks are identical. They are regular hard drives, not SSD. I have done it many times before.

Any suggestion what to try?

Stephan Marais

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Are you doing the cloning with the recovery CD?

Is your source disk GPT or MBR? What about the other disk?

Both the source and target are MBR.

I have not tried it with the recovery CD. At around 1AM this morning I was going to try that but cancelled it because the Clone wizard from the recovery CD does not have the option to leave the source disk intact, like the wizard when running from within Windows. I did not want to risk loosing my source disk.
If somebody can confirm that it does not modify the source disk then I will go ahead and try it.

Thank yoou
Stephan

Whenever you clone, you should first do a full disk backup. As we see often in this forum, cloning comes with risks of complete loss of the source and destination disk.
Make sure that your computer can boot on the source disk alone in the system. If yes, do a backup and redo the clone with the recovery CD.
DO NOT reboot the computer with both disks in the system (source and cloned).

If the system doesn't boot on the original disk alone any longer: Do you have the Windows 8.1 installation DVD, or a Windows 7 installation DVD? You could use it to try to repair the startup of your computer.

I have made a full disk backup now just for in case I get problems. I also exchanged the new hard disk this pm for a new one (got the other one last night at Best Buy). I will try it again and this time do it from the recovery CD and make sure to not reboot with both disks in the system.
Yes, I do have the Windows 8.1 full original cd and will use that to try and fix the MBR if it still fails.

Thank you for the help an advice.

Stephan

I have tried the options/steps mentioned but it resulted in the same problem. I even tried to do a restore from my full backup onto the new drive, same problem.

I managed to get it working by rebuilding the BCD of the new disk:
- Boot with the Windows 8 installation DVD
- Troubleshoot
- Advanced Options
go to the command prompt and enter
bootrec.exe /RebuildBCD

That fixed the problem. I do not know if my source drive also has the same problem with the BCD, even though it works fine.

Stephan