Question I think I done messed up

Greenmorpheus

Reputable
May 9, 2019
39
1
4,535
I was trying to clone my boot drive to a new SSD since the original was a hard drive with limited storage. I cloned it using macrium and tried to boot with only the new SSD after shutdown. No boot and no option to use it after I tried finding it in the bios. When I checked my disk management I saw that I only cloned and did not expand the on the new SSD. So I had a partition that was not being used. I want to allocate the whole drive(I was running out of room, and that was the issue). After I deleted the cloned drive and tried to expand it I was no longer able. If any assistance could be offered please help. This is what I'm looking at now.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
A couple of critical steps missed in the clone process
  1. Keeping the old drive in there, after the clone process
  2. Not resizing the resultant partitions during the clone process. Macrium has this functionality.

2 ways to "fix this".
1. Test the actual functionality of the clone target. Power OFF, physically disconnect all drives except the new clone. Power up and see if it boots. If it does, then you can think about fixing the partition thing. But you MUST verify actual functionality first.

or

2. Redo the clone process. Thusly:
-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD


(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------
 
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Greenmorpheus

Reputable
May 9, 2019
39
1
4,535
A couple of critical steps missed in the clone process
  1. Keeping the old drive in there, after the clone process
  2. Not resizing the resultant partitions during the clone process. Macrium has this functionality.
2 ways to "fix this".
1. Test the actual functionality of the clone target. Power OFF, physically disconnect all drives except the new clone. Power up and see if it boots. If it does, then you can think about fixing the partition thing. But you MUST verify actual functionality first.

or

2. Redo the clone process. Thusly:
-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD


(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------
When I tried to boot with only the C drive and the new SSD I got an error from windows saying my windows needs to be repaired. Missing \WINDOWS\system32\winload.exe
Error code: 0xc000000e
Happens when I have only the C drive plugged in as well