Question I plugged my C drive with Windows installation into another computer externally, now I can't boot from it ?

[Aaave1244]

Hey all, I was doing some upgrades for my computer, and I'm migrating to a new system with an NVMe SSD instead of a SATA SSD. I couldn't find the sata power cable for my new power supply (I've found them now) so I decided the easiest way to copy my data over to my new computer would be to use an external sata to USB connector and Macrium Reflect.

I had a spare hard drive I installed Windows on, it worked fine, I installed Macrium Reflect on it and copied over the data from my external sata SSD to my nvme SSD. After this, I noticed both my nvme SSD and my old sata SSD had been converted from GPT to MBR, and I now cannot boot from either, even when I plug it in internally.

All of my data still seems to be intact, and I have not touched the original sata drive since I made this mistake. Any changes I have made have been on my nvme SSD, where everything is only a copy.

I followed a tutorial on repairing the MBR, using mbr2gpt with a Windows installer, and a few other things but nothing has worked. Does anyone have any idea with anything I can do to get my Windows to boot again, or at the very least copy all of my data over to a working Windows installation ?
Thank you so much for any help you can give.

 

[helpstar]

Did you clone your external to your internal SSD?

Change the bios option UEFI to CSM (eventually disable secure boot) and check if the boot order is set correctly

 

[Aaave1244]

Thank you for responding! Sadly no, whenever CSM is enabled on the bios and legacy is enabled, you just get a black screen saying "An operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drives that don't contain an operating system." when you try to boot from the original sata SSD and also the nvme SSD.

 

[dwd999]

Thank you for responding! Sadly no, whenever CSM is enabled on the bios and legacy is enabled, you just get a black screen saying "An operating system wasn't found. Try disconnecting any drives that don't contain an operating system." when you try to boot from the original sata SSD and also the nvme SSD.

I've been using macrium for about a year. How did the source ssd partition table get set to MBR in the first place? I've never heard of macrium changing the partition table on a source disk during the cloning process. Was the source hdd set as MBR? You could try using a disk editor like Gparted to reset the partition table on the nvme to GPT and try the cloning process again to see if it will clone without damaging the partition table. But its difficult to understand how or why the partition table on the source ssd was changed in the first place and what caused any software to do this.

 

[USAFRet]

Does anyone have any idea with anything I can do to get my windows to boot again, or at the very least copy all of my data over to a working windows installation?

What "data" are you trying to copy into a new OS?

If it is just your personal files, music, docs, etc...just copy.

If something else, please inform us.
(and whatever you're thinking probably won't work)

 

[Aaave1244]

I've been using macrium for about a year. How did the source ssd partition table get set to MBR in the first place? I've never heard of macrium changing the partition table on a source disk during the cloning process. Was the source hdd set as MBR? You could try using a disk editor like Gparted to reset the partition table on the nvme to GPT and try the cloning process again to see if it will clone without damaging the partition table. But its difficult to understand how or why the partition table on the source ssd was changed in the first place and what caused any software to do this.

I've been using Macrium for a while now too, I think it may have actually been me plugging in my drive externally that changed it from GPT to MBR. I also have AOMEI partition assistant and I know I can convert my sata SSD back to being gpt using that software, but when I did that on my nvme drive it still didn't recognize it as a proper windows installation.

 

[Aaave1244]

What "data" are you trying to copy into a new OS?

If it is just your personal files, music, docs, etc...just copy.

If something else, please inform us.
(and whatever you're thinking probably won't work)

I was hoping to get all of my things the way they were before, all of my programs, my desktop, my logins, etc. If there's a way to just copy all of that over without having to deal with all of this cloning and MBR stuff I'd be happy to, I'm just not sure how.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

anyone have any idea with anything I can do to get my Windows to boot again, or at the very least copy all of my data over to a working Windows installation ?

if your personal files still exist on both drives;

remove the older SSD.
format the new NVMe with a fresh Windows installation.
reattach the old SSD and then copy & paste all of your personal documents onto the new drive with the fresh OS.

you will need to reinstall any 3rd party applications but all of your user data related to them should still exist on the older SSD.
you can just copy & paste that data from each application's user settings/folders/etc.

 

[USAFRet]

I was hoping to get all of my things the way they were before, all of my programs, my desktop, my logins, etc. If there's a way to just copy all of that over without having to deal with all of this cloning and MBR stuff I'd be happy to, I'm just not sure how.

OK, that can't happen.

1. You can't just apply an old OS to a new system

2. You can't slice out the programs, etc and apply those to a new OS.

 

[dreamteam]

I've been using Macrium for a while now too,

try AOMEI backupper, it will create an image of your disk and has an option to make it bootable on a different hardware.
if you just want to fix MBR https://www.lazesoft.com/windows-recovery/fix-disk-boot-failure.html