Question How to run a cloned SSD of my Win11 PC as a VM to verify it works properly?

[cmm373]

Hello,

First off, let me say that I am new to the world of VMs. I'm a long time user of many Windows versions for home use, and also AIX & Linux at work.

I recently created a clone of my Windows 11 PC using R-drive image software. This ran successfully and so I now have a fully bootable clone / replica of my Win11 OS drive on a new NVMe SSD.

My goal is (seemingly) simple, however, I've had a very difficult time trying to figure out exactly how to accomplish it. Normally, I would just turn off my computer and unplug everything and just replace & install the newly cloned SSD into my machine and boot it up. However, since my current Win11 OS SSD is working fine, my idea is to keep this cloned SSD as a full backup of my machine and its OS drive. I plan to re-clone the OS drive every few months to keep the backup fresh.

Since I do not (currently) plan to install the newly cloned SSD in my machine, I would like to confirm that it is bootable and works as I expect it should.

Hence, I want to be able to "virtual boot" this cloned SSD , which is attached to my main PC via a USB enclosure, and verify that it boots and runs Windows as expected.

Is this possible? I assume it should be, using VM software.

I realize there are various popular VM software available - like VirtualBox, VMware Workstation, and Hyper-V. I chose VirtualBox since it's free and open source. I tried to use this software to run the aforementioned USB attached SSD as a VM but could find no way to do that.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

Since I do not (currently) plan to install the newly cloned SSD in my machine

Then why did you do this clone?

Thats the whole concept behind the cloning process.

 

[cmm373]

Well, just because I now want to use it as a backup. No other reason. Is there a solution to the question I asked??

 

[cmm373]

Just one more thing of note to add to this topic....
Macrium Software (who of course make Macrium Reflect) offers this:

https://www.macrium.com/viboot

And the key feature of viBoot is, as they state:
"At a minimum, viBoot enables you to boot into the images you have made using Macrium Reflect, for validation purposes, or to retrieve data from old applications stored on a bootable image. "

That is **precisely** what I want to be able to do here.

However, in my case, I did not (well, could not to be more accurate) use Macrium Reflect (MR) to clone my OS drive.
I've actually used Macrium many times in the past, usually to clone an OS hard drive to a new SSD and replace the OS drive with the new SSD as an upgrade. That worked for me many times in the past over the years.
In the case we're talking about here, I tried using MR again, but this time it failed miserably. It ran into some CRC read errors on my C drive. Even when I updated the MR settings to ignore such errors and ran again, it still failed (same errors). That's when I tried R-drive image for the clone, and it worked (still had the read errors, but it did ignore them as I requested it to).
I believe my C drive (Samsung 970 EVO SSD) is OK. I ran chkdsk on it, and it showed no errors. I do see 83 CRC "integrity" errors from the SMART data on the drive using CrystalDisk info, however, that number has been static for a long time, so it makes me think that the drive is healthy and those CRC problems are not a long term issue (hopefully).
For that reason, I used an alternative to do the clone, and that was R-drive Image software as I mentioned before.

So, I guess another way to ask the question here is....
--> is there a generic alternative to Macrium viBoot software?

Thanks in advance.

 

[hotaru.hino]

What you're looking at with Macrium sounds more like a tool for those doing image deployment on a server that hosts VMs rather than for your use case.

So the only way you can really make sure the clone you made works is to use the clone on the actual target.

 

[TerryLaze]

So, I guess another way to ask the question here is....
--> is there a generic alternative to Macrium viBoot software?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, it's called windows...
You can take an image of a drive with dism.exe and then boot into that image with the normal boot menu, easybcd is a easy method of doing the boot menu part without having to look up commands.

But what you really want is to boot via the usb and that is pretty much not possible, if you have a clone image file on the usb you can boot into that but you can't boot into it if it is an installed windows.

Basically make another clone but store in on an internal disk as an image and you will be able to use it in any virtual machine (some converting might be needed)

Also be aware that booting into the clone in an VM will change the clone by writing stuff to it, mainly drivers and pagefile and system stuff, it might cause issues when you try to use it on actual hardware again.

 

[cmm373]

Thanks for the replies. Great info and very helpful.

I wonder if DISM accomplishes the same thing as this other Windows built-in tool (difference being, this one is GUI based)
https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/how-to-back-up-and-restore-an-image-file-of-windows-10

.. this is the "Backup and Restore.." feature in Control Panel.

 

[hotaru.hino]

That tool can make a system image, but it's also put in a folder that isn't supposed to be accessible to normal users, implying you shouldn't touch it until you need it.

In any case, I'd advise trying to boot any clone of your system in anything other than the system itself. Booting it on a VM is no different than taking your system drive and plugging it into another computer. It might work, it might be okay, but the OS is going to try and configure itself for the "hardware" it thinks its on. And while I'd like to believe the same Windows install can handle going back and forth between systems, there's also the possibility it might not be able to catch everything and you'll be chasing ghosts due to a weird configuration.

Plus there's the question of what even qualifies as the clone being "okay"? Just making sure it boots isn't really enough.

 

[USAFRet]

I recently created a clone of my Windows 11 PC using R-drive image software. This ran successfully and so I now have a fully bootable clone / replica of my Win11 OS drive on a new NVMe SSD.

Ultimately, you're using the concept of "clone" incorrectly.

A Clone is to move the OS or whatever to a different drive right now.
An Image is for backup/to save for later.

A clone is a single snapshot in time.
You have one made today. Great. 3 months from now, it will be 3 months out of date.

Images can be a rolling set, to be recovered whenever.
I have a new Image created every night.

 

[cmm373]

Thanks everyone for the replies.
Ultimately, I agree - I think the best plan for me going forward is to create system images (ie, as a file) of my OS drive, not a full clone, and do that on a much more regular basis [than every few months, as I had previously planned on doing w/ the cloning process].

That way, if something happens to my main PC, whether it be the OS goes haywire - or the C drive (ssd) goes bad, I should be able to recover pretty easily using the system image backup, in either case.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks everyone for the replies.
Ultimately, I agree - I think the best plan for me going forward is to create system images (ie, as a file) of my OS drive, not a full clone, and do that on a much more regular basis [than every few months, as I had previously planned on doing w/ the cloning process].

That way, if something happens to my main PC, whether it be the OS goes haywire - or the C drive (ssd) goes bad, I should be able to recover pretty easily using the system image backup, in either case.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

 

[cmm373]

I have separate backups that I run for my other (data) drives. I do the backups more or less randomly. Not great, I know.

My plan going forward is to do regular system image backups, per what we talked about above - and also get my other / data drive backups automated & scheduled so they occur on a regular cadence.

 

[USAFRet]

I have separate backups that I run for my other (data) drives. I do the backups more or less randomly. Not great, I know.

My plan going forward is to do regular system image backups, per what we talked about above - and also get my other / data drive backups automated & scheduled so they occur on a regular cadence.

My schedule depends on system needs.

My main system: Each physical drive gets an Image (incremental) every night.
My HTPC: A Full Image once a week.
Wifes system: Full Image every other day.
Travel laptops: Whenever I feel like it.

All to the same folder tree in the NAS.
Except for the travel laptops, all hands off on a schedule.