clone windows 10 to a different hard drive?

[shmu26]

can I clone my primary drive, which is windows 10, to a secondary hard drive that I have on my computer?
1 will I be able to boot to the cloned drive if I need to?
2 will this mess up windows activation?
3 is it problematic to have two identical windows 10 installations on the same PC?

primary drive is 0
data drive is 1
clone drive is 2

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, shmu26!

I don't think this is necessary to have identical Windows 10 boot loaders on both drives, as it might cause some OS confusion. If you are doing this as a backup solution for your operating system, I'd suggest you simply use an external drive or some other external device for a system image and a Repair Disk (in case you don't have the Windows 10 installation media). Having a backup stored in both internal drives is not a wise backup solution. In an unfortunate case where your whole system fails, you'd be lose both drive's data. This is exactly why it's highly recommended to keep backups off-site.

I'd recommend you keep your OS on the boot drive and use the other one as a secondary HDD for your data. You might as well change the default install path to the secondary drive, if you won't want to fill up your primary one.

Hope this was helpful. Good luck!
Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD

 

[shmu26]

thanks.
I don't plan on setting up a dual boot.
I do have system images backed up as you recommended, to be used for recovery.

 

[shmu26]

Hey there, shmu26!

I don't think this is necessary to have identical Windows 10 boot loaders on both drives, as it might cause some OS confusion.
Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD

You were right.
It worked like a charm a few times, but then the boot mechanism started to get confused. In the end, I got a really bad BSOD that I was only able to recover from by the skin of my teeth. I just couldn't boot into any drive at all.
I now removed the cloned drive from my PC -- more trouble than it's worth.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

You were right.
It worked like a charm a few times, but then the boot mechanism started to get confused. In the end, I got a really bad BSOD that I was only able to recover from by the skin of my teeth. I just couldn't boot into any drive at all.
I now removed the cloned drive from my PC -- more trouble than it's worth.

Hey there again, @shmu26!

I hope you finally got rid of the issue! Usually, that why it's recommended to perform a clean install onto your new primary/booting drive with the other one unplugged from the SATA ports on the motherboard. This way, you avoid the OS confusion and you are able to successfully use both drives after Windows is up and running onto the new OS drive.
Another thing that happens is that you avoid the transfer of redundant system files from your old OS installation. This could potentially harm the performance of your system.

I'd also recommend you check this tutorial about Windows Install & Optimization with SSDs & HDDs.

Hope, it sheds some light on the step-by-steps for storage optimization of your system.
Cheers,
SuperSoph_WD

 

[shmu26]

thanks.
macrium reflect boot repair does wonders. that is always my ace in the hole.
Problem was, I had a hard time getting the BIOS menu to open, so I could boot from removable media.
but in the end, BIOS opened, somehow. (I have a stubborn BIOS)