Macrium Reflect Clone won’t Boot on Windows 10

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Hi,

I’ve been trying to clone my 500GB drive to a 1TB unsuccessfully for about a week, so hoping I might be able to get some insight.   I am using the Clone function, and expanding the main partition to allocate the additional space of the drive.  When the cloning process completes, the new drive looks as if everything has transferred successfully, but after I shut down and put the new drive in, I get a media disconnected error, can’t find boot.

One difference I did notice is that on the original C: drive, all 3 of the partitions have the little icon that indicates ‘required to boot Windows’, but the clone only has one partition with that indication (the main drive).  The other two partitions are there but don’t have the windows icon.

I’ve tried the rescue disk to fix the drive, but that says that it can’t fix anything.

Any insight you may be able to provide would be very appreciated!

bri

 

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Don’t clone.
Try creating full image of the old and restoring to the new.

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Thanks for the idea.  If I can find a big enough drive, I will try the disk image and see if that is successful.

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I just cloned a drive over the weekend using Macrium Reflect.  From my experience, boot into the BIOS and make sure the new drive is first in the boot order.

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Macrium Reflect clones have worked for me. The result should be no different than taking an image from a source drive, and then restoring it to a target drive.

If you first wanted to save a copy of the disk, then an image file would give you that. But you would still have the original disk either way. Cloning saves a step by going directly from old disk to new.

1. In all cases where Windows won’t boot from a new disk, check your UEFI/BIOS boot setup.
2. Digging deeper – Use Startup Repair to fix problems that keep Windows from loading: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/fix-problems-keep-windows-81-loading-start-repair/
3. Even deeper – Repair the EFI Bootloader or the MBR (Master Boot Record) for Windows: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/command-prompt-fix-issues-your-boot-records/

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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I’ve had Macrium work for me in the past as well, which is why this is puzzling.  I should have also mentioned that I checked the boot order, removed all other drives, and it still fails to boot.  I also tried rebuilding the MBR through the command line (rescue disk boot) which was also ineffective.  I am really curious about why the little windows icons show up on all of the partitions on the original and not on the clone though.  It’s telling me that the original partitions all are needed to boot into windows, but on the clone, it’s only showing the windows icon on the main partition.   Could there be a setting I’m missing?

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Did you disconnect the original drive?

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Brian wrote:

When the cloning process completes, the new drive looks as if everything has transferred successfully, but after I shut down and put the new drive in, I get a media disconnected error, can’t find boot.

There are a number of snags that can occur when cloning. You can get a sense of some of them by reviewing my video, “Principles of Cloning and Imaging“, particularly the segment from 11:00-15:25. The error message you’re getting suggests the clone still thinks part of its boot path goes through the old disk.

 

Brian wrote:

I’ve tried the rescue disk to fix the drive, but that says that it can’t fix anything.

Are you referring to the Macrium Rescue disk, or to a Windows recovery disk? Macrium’s “Fix Windows Boot Problems” tool on the Macrium Rescue disk is usually pretty good, though it’s not infallible.

BTW, it might help to know what OS you’re cloning, what partition table style (MBR or GPT), and how you’re performing the cloning operation — from within Windows or from external boot media. All of those factors can impact the reliability of the operation.

 

Alex5723 wrote:

Don’t clone. Try creating full image of the old and restoring to the new.

Alex is right. As I explain in my video, imaging is marginally more reliable than cloning. When it works, cloning can save you a step, but when it doesn’t work, cut your losses and try imaging.

Make an image (to a portable USB drive, for instance), swap the hard disks, boot from Macrium Rescue media (CD or USB stick), and restore from the image to the new disk.

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I’d recommend this approach:

1. Make a fresh rescue usb key.
2. Boot from the usb key.
3. Image the entire drive to external media, making sure you have selected the option to verify the image!
4. shutdown.
5. Remove the boot drive and replace with the new empty drive, No partitions or anything.
6. Boot from usb key.
7. Restore the whole image.
8. Reboot.

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

PowerShell & VBA Rule!
Computer Specs

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Thank you for the suggestion, and thank you everyone else for all of your input!  I tried this plan tonight.  I created an image on an external 2tb usb drive, and put it at the root of the drive.  There is other stuff on the drive, but I assumed macrium would still be able to find it.  I formatted the new drive I want to use (1 TB).  I created a new macrium rescue media 8GB usb drive.   I shut down, removed the old hard drive, put in the new one, and and booted into rescue mode with the little usb drive.  I went to ‘restore from disk image’ and then attached the 2TB usb drive.  And no matter what I did, I could not get macrium to find the new image.  I’m surprised that they don’t allow you to browse for it, because when I was exploring, I ended up on the ‘install new driver’ page in that same area, and I could browse and see the .mrimg file there on the big usb drive, but couldn’t find a way to browse to the image file itself when macrium was looking for it.  Arrgh.  Bout to pull my hair out with this one.

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Are you saying that you aren’t seeing your new image in the “Existing Backups” view shown here in step 3?

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Restoring+an+image+from+within+the+Rescue+Media

“If you cannot find the backup image you would like to use in the provided list, select Browse for an image file…  at the top of the existing backups tab and look through the windows explorer to find it.”

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Brian wrote:

One difference I did notice is that on the original C: drive, all 3 of the partitions have the little icon that indicates ‘required to boot Windows’, but the clone only has one partition with that indication (the main drive). The other two partitions are there but don’t have the windows icon.

When the “clone this disk” command is used, the clone settings window opens with the partitions you selected in the tab Create Backups > Local Disk view.

You should have at least 3 partitions in the clone, or at least as many as are on the original C: drive. If not, they somehow got deselected during the clone job setup. On a similar note, this also applies when making images. Make sure you are selecting all needed partitions on the source drive when imaging or cloning.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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yep, I have the same number of partitions on the clone, and they are the correct sizes.  The only difference is that the two that are not the primary partition do not have the windows symbol on them anymore as they did on the original disk.  I am creating a disk image right now so I am going to try that method next and see if I have any better luck.

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Brian wrote:

The only difference is that the two that are not the primary partition do not have the windows symbol on them anymore as they did on the original disk.

Just curious where you are seeing this displayed. Not seeing it here.

Anyways, good luck with the image!

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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I can’t attach a screenshot, unfortunately, but if you take a look at this link, you’ll notice that all the partitions have the little windows symbol in the upper left-hand corner before the partition number.   All of my original disk partitions have it, but only one on the cloned drive does.

https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW80/Windows+Partitions

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I gotcha! I’ve never used that “Create an image of the partition(s) required” choice. I always use the “Image selected disks on this computer”, select the C: drive and include all of the partitions on it.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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The C: drive is the Win OS System drive.
You need to check the far left check box and be sure there is a check in the boxes for all the other partitions. If you just Clone/Image the C: partition your drive won’t boot.

The same goes for when you restore. All the partitions have to be restored to the target drive.

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Solved.  Thank you to everyone for your comments and suggestions.

So…I was not able to solve this issue with Macrium.

I tried all of the suggestions that were mentioned, but none of them would work for me.  I’m not sure exactly why.  I tried cloning, imaging to a new drive and using rescue boot to image the new drive, and about 26 other things, but I could not get the disk to boot.

What did eventually work for me was Samsung Data Migration.  I’m not sure why I didn’t try it sooner, but it cloned the disk, allocated the additional space to the C: drive automatically and I was able to boot first try.

Again, I appreciate everyone’s input and hope that this resolution may help someone else in the future.

bri

 

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I actually just went through this hassle all day yesterday, heres my experience

• Clone ssd to ssd in macrium
  • Made sure everything identical
• Restarted computer and change boot order
• Somehow successfully booted (my new drive probably failed to boot so it chose my old one, which i didn’t realize)
• I assumed new drive was working fine cause it booted up (it didn’t)
• Wiped the old drive and restarted
• Couldn’t boot, got some blue screen saying I didn’t have a bootable drive connected

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Here’s what fixed my non bootable macrium reflect cloned drive:

Really not sure if we’re allowed to link videos, but this youtube video saved the day by re-creating the boot sector from the command prompt on a windows installation usb drives recovery section. After following the GPT methods, i was able to boot up normally on my new drive. I had no clue you can do so much from the command line on an installation media drive.

---

I must’ve did something wrong in Macrium, I was just blindly following a different youtube video that seemed promising. I honestly can’t recommend it to beginners

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I must’ve did something wrong in Macrium, I was just blindly following a different youtube video that seemed promising.

This may help.  I’m a Macrium user.  In short, Cloning makes a sector by sector copy of the source disk.  I never use closing for this reason.   Use Imaging and avoid the sector by sector cloning issues.  I makes zero difference and avoids the headaches when creating a fully functional bootable copy of your boot drive on another disk/ssd.

Desktop mobo Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Alex5723

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Thanks!!!

I had the same problem and Samsung Magician worked.

Recommended for Samsung SSD in first place.

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TechTango wrote:

I must’ve did something wrong in Macrium, I was just blindly following a different youtube video that seemed promising.

This may help.  I’m a Macrium user.  In short, Cloning makes a sector by sector copy of the source disk.  I never use closing for this reason.   Use Imaging and avoid the sector by sector cloning issues.  I makes zero difference and avoids the headaches when creating a fully functional bootable copy of your boot drive on another disk/ssd.

Imaging with Macrium has two modes: https://www.macrium.com/what-is-in-an-image-backup-fe3c0264acd7

To minimise the size of the image file, the page and hibernation files are always excluded. These contain data discarded when Windows reboots, and consequently are not useful to restore a system to a bootable state.

Reflect has two imaging modes Intelligent Sector Copy (the default) and Forensic Copy.

Filesystems allocate storage blocks as files are created and appended and deallocate blocks when a file is deleted. Intelligent sector copy mode only reads active blocks. This speeds up the backup process and reduces the size of the backup. For all normal purposes, this is the correct option and will enable a system to be restored from scratch.

The alternative mode, Forensic Copy, will include every storage block in the backup (excluding the data discussed above). This potentially enables the recovery of deleted files as deallocated data is also included in the backup. For SSD based storage, this option has no utility and will only have the effect of slowing down the backup process.

Note regarding “storage block”:

A storage block is the minimum allocation unit of a filesystem. For NTFS, it is called a cluster. It is made up of a contiguous block of sectors. A sector is the minimum addressable unit of data on a disk, and typically represents 512 or 4096 bytes.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Hello,

Just to notify future readers that I confirm the fact that when Clone Disk won’t work, Image Disk and Restore Image will.
No idea why.
I may have know that and forgot about it.

Don’t lose your time and go for Image Disk / Restore image if you need smooth Windows migration.

Full steps below with 2 disks (the original and the new one both connected:
-Prerequisites: know what disk is plugged where on your motherboard. I assume they are connected using SATA
-on the original, run a disk management to create a partition on the new disk, large enough to store your image file (approx. half the size of the original disk size thanks to compression)
-now open Macrium and image the original disk to that separate disk, wait for completion
-once it is complete move that .img file back to the original disk (copy / paste to a c:\temp folder using Windows)
-once the img in on C:\ , in Macrium go to the Restore menu then select Browse to select the img file
-when the img file is opened, click on the Restore icon at on the bottom-middle part of the screen then select a new target disk to select the new one.
-click next
-wait for Restore completion
-once the Restore is done shutdown your computer, then unplug the original disk
-turn on your computer, it will boot on the new one, if not check your bios boot order
-once in Windows with the new one, hotplug the original one if you want to format it.

Configuration:
Macrium Reflect Free updated as of 2024-08-11.

Note: I lost some time following Youtube video which use the Clone feature. Don’t be me.

a+,=)
-=Finiderire=-

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Finideriire wrote:

Just to notify future readers that I confirm the fact that when Clone Disk won’t work, Image Disk and Restore Image will.

Clone disk isn’t recommended as it waste a whole disk while multiple image backup can be created on a single disk.

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JohnW wrote:

Don’t lose your time and go for Image Disk / Restore image if you need smooth Windows migration.

You’re spot on.  I’m a long time Macrium user.

Desktop mobo Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, CPU: Intel Core i7-7820X Skylake-X 8-Core 3.6 GHz, RAM: 32GB, GPU: Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti 4GB. Display: Four 27" 1080p screens 2 over 2 quad.

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I’ve done a repair of the «master Boot Record and that fixed it for me I used MiniTool Partition Wizard for that to work.

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