• Happy holidays, folks! Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of the Tom's Hardware community!

Question Trying to boot to cloned USB Drive to test it

Dec 17, 2024
6
0
10
HP Envy TE-01 0034
W11
New Drive Samsung 980 - 1 TB
Used Samsung Magician

I’m new here hello. It cloned successfully. I changed the bios boot order and it booted to “inaccessible drive error”. Also, the boot configuration doesn’t give any choice of what to boot to besides the default drive. I’m lost. TY
 
HP Envy TE-01 0034
W11
New Drive Samsung 980 - 1 TB
Used Samsung Magician

I’m new here hello. It cloned successfully. I changed the bios boot order and it booted to “inaccessible drive error”. Also, the boot configuration doesn’t give any choice of what to boot to besides the default drive. I’m lost. TY
Assuming Windows, that won't work.
You can't take a drive, either the physical or a clone, put it in an external, and have it boot. Windows doesn't work like that.

Assuming you saw no faults at the end of the clone/migration process, it will work, once you install that drive internally.


New drive = 980.
What was the old drive?
 
Thank you; I appreciate it. I'll start the process of installing it on the machine, which I had some reluctance about as I'm a novice.
 
You won't be able to boot Windows from a USB disk drive unless you use something like Win-to-USB.
https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/

For normal cloning, if the new drive is placed in a USB housing for cloning, when the clonin process ends, you must unplug the old drive from the computer, remove the cloned drive from the USB caddy and install it in the computer.

As @SkyNetRising says, you should not attempt to start the PC from the new drive (inside the PC), until you have disconnected the old drive.
 
Old drive has to be physically disconnected for first boot from new drive.
This step is not optional.
If you fail to follow this, you'll have to redo cloning.
HP Envy TE-01 0034
W11
New Drive Samsung 980 - 1 TB
Thanks again. Hi: Do you know if there are separate slots for NVme and Sata SSD in this computer. i replaced it successfully but took one out and dropped the new one. i don't think I saw two separate slots.