clone question
I use true image bootable media (cd) to clone the hard drive. OS is Windows 10. Yesterday windows did it's patch thing, this rendered the pc non bootable, get preparing automatic repair, then diagnosing your pc. After that I get an auto repair screen and I can't get any listed under advanced options to work. So I thought "no big deal" I'll clone back. Well, when cloning back I noticed that it says something about merging partitions. and when done it does the same thing. SO my question is, does the close option from Bootable media (version 39287) actually do a true clone, or what does it really do. Note that this is a new pc that I'm building and did test this before and it worked, but then again, everything was bootable at that time. While I haven't gone to windows 10 bootable media to see what options it may have, short of wiping the existing drive and then cloning back, anyone have any ideas?
I've been doing the clone routine for a long time (older version on the old pc) so that if the hd has a problem I just take the cloned one and stick it in the pc and I'm off and running.


- Accedi per poter commentare

To make it easier to follow, drive a is the os drive, drive b is the clone. This pc is only a few months old and the drives are spinners (non ssd). I tired putting the clone in the pc with the same result (no boot). This is strange as I had used it (drive b) to clone over to drive b about 10 days ago. Now I'm really wondering what TI meant when it said "merging" partitions, as in it appears to have done something to the drive b in the process.
Please note that all was good until Windows did it patches.
- Accedi per poter commentare

Bill, sorry but you still haven't told me how you are doing the cloning here, or how the drives were connected when the cloning was performed, or whether the cloned drive was removed immediately after the clone was complete?
Do you have a backup of the working OS drive that could be used for recovery or was the clone your only backup strategy here?
If you were using bootable media to perform the clone then did you use the same BIOS Boot mode for the media as is used by your Windows OS, i.e. both using UEFI boot if this is what the new PC is using as would be expected for any new PC that would support upgrading to Windows 11? Did you save the log file for the clone operation from the rescue media environment before restarting the PC (when the logs are lost due to being volatile)?
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The drives are all connected via sata. The clone drive is in an external case, connection is sata port on mb,cable to esata bracket then to external case. This makes it easy to power it off and remove the cable at the end of the cloning process. The mb just shows it as sata connected.
No backup, cloning is my recovery plan.
Yes, UEFI and booted the bootable media (cd) in uefi mode.
The clone process has an option to power down when the clone is done (I love this option) and the clone drive is removed then. Note that both drive a and b are different models so that it's easy to tell them apart when selecting the source and destination disks
Also I had used the clone (drive b) successfully about 10 days ago, so I know it worked then,.
I didn't know there was a log file, so I obviously don't have it.
I'm really curious as to how the cloned drive got into the same state as the original drive as it wasn't connected when windows did it patches and was only connected used when booting TI.
- Accedi per poter commentare

Bill, one of the downsides to using clone is that there is the potential for a disk signature clash when two drives are present which in essence are 'identical' down to the disk signature. This can cause Windows to get corrupted.
I prefer using Backup & Recovery over using cloning and your experience here has reinforced my reasons for doing so if you now have both a failed source and cloned drive with no backup.
I have never used external SATA drives via an eSATA connection so have no experience of how this works in comparison to using a USB to SATA adapter or dock.
If your cloned drive was powered off and disconnected immediately after the clone completed successfully, then it should not have been touched by any other changes that were applied to the source OS drive. That just leaves the question of how you are attempting to boot from the cloned drive? Are you removing the original source drive and replacing it with the clone, or are you attempting to boot directly from the cloned drive with the original drive still present? The latter can lead to a drive signature clash!
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