Windows 7 won't boot after cloning hard drive to larger disk, getting Stop 7B

[BillHensley]

Windows 7 won't boot after cloning hard drive to larger disk. I needed a larger hard drive for my HP 6930p, so I bought a new TB hard drive. I used the Linux dd command to clone the 320GB drive to the TB drive (this is something I have done literally dozens of times for XP machines, with zero issues). My plan was to verify the clone worked in the laptop, then use gparted to grow the W7 installation out to the full disk.

When I installed the cloned TB drive in the 6930p, Windows BSOD'd with Stop 7b 0x80786b50 0x00000034. After much research, it seems like Windows 7 is looking for the disk serial number or some other unique identifier. It's important to note that I didn't change anything about the machine, except the hard drive, to include BIOS settings. I saw one fix that didn't work that involved changing the AHCI setting in the registry of the TB drive. This issue is repeatable with a 500GB drive as well.

I also verified this is a Windows issue by cloning the drive of my wife's laptop to both the 500GB and TB drives, same result. When the cloned drive is connected to a machine via an external USB interface, it reads and writes just fine. Again, I've used this cloning method on at least 100 drives, XP, Linux, Solaris, and W98.

It seems like Windows 7 can't handle being cloned. I'd appreciate some pointers.

 

[USAFRet]

At first guess, I think that you missed cloning the System Reserved partition. Probably 100MB, right at the beginning of the drive.
This is the boot info. Without it, no boot for you.

 

[popatim]

Its been a long while since I've used DD but it isnt 100% compatible with NTFS is it?

I thought I remember it being a 4 step process with DD and ntfsclone which is why I began using free tools like clonezilla, macrium reflext, Acronis WD edition, Seagate Seatools - to get an easier 1 pass workflow.

Just trying to learn/relearn something new
Thanks.

 

[BillHensley]

USAFRet (thank you for serving) and Popatim, dd does nothing more than move bits from one block device to another. The command I used was dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb. This copies every bit on disk a to disk b. It got the boot and OS partitions. I ran a byte - level verification and got a 100% match. dd doesn't care about the file system. And I've been using dd for cloning for 15 years, and this W7 clone is the first issue I've had.

The use of Clonezilla and others is needed when the target disk is too small and a partition needs to be shrunk.

 

[USAFRet]

USAFRet (thank you for serving) and Popatim, dd does nothing more than move bits from one block device to another. The command I used was dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb. This copies every bit on disk a to disk b. It got the boot and OS partitions. I ran a byte - level verification and got a 100% match. dd doesn't care about the file system. And I've been using dd for cloning for 15 years, and this W7 clone is the first issue I've had.

The use of Clonezilla and others is needed when the target disk is too small and a partition needs to be shrunk.

When connected to another Windows machine, what does it look like in Disk Management?
Do you see the small System Reserved partition? 100MB.

 

[BillHensley]

I've attached a screen cap of what the two disks look like when attached to another computer via an external USB-to-SATA.

As you can see, the 250GB drive has the same properties as the TB dirve (except there's a lot more room on the TB drive ). This is why I an surprised.

The image is largish, might take a bit to load. It's at:

http://www.st-john.k12.ok.us/School_W7_Disks.jpg

 

[USAFRet]

Right.
In the original system, you have two drives, Disk 0 & Disk 1
Disk 0 has 2 partitions, 100MB and 465.66GB
Disk 1 232.88 GB (OSDisk G)

You cloned the 232.88GB to a 1TB drive, resulting in the Disk 1 in the bottom image.
232.88 NTFS & 1630.13GB unallocated.

You then put that 1TB drive in another system, and it does not boot.
Am I correct so far?

This is to be expected.

The only reason the system boots in either image is the existence of the System Reserved partition on Disk 0 - 100MB. That is the boot info.
That does not exist on Disk 1 in either drive, the 250GB or the 1TB. If you put that drive alone in a new system, no boot for you.

Boot from a Windows install disk, and Windows Repair might fix it.

 

[USAFRet]

Secondly, the clone from one system to another.

Windows really dislikes being put in a different system than it was installed on. Either physically moving the drive, or a clone of the drive.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The farther apart the hardware, the less likely it is to work. And it is pretty impossible to predict success or fail.

So this may be an issue as well.

 

[popatim]

And you have to copy the boot code portion of the mbr over manually too iirc. I'm not sure about the mbr signiture.

And you will likely have alignment issues also since the new drive is definitely 4k and the old one is likely to be 512 judging from its size.

 

[BillHensley]

I have clearly not been... clear . A bit of clarification. Disk 0 and Disk 1 232.88 GB are both used in my HP 6930p, and boot just fine. I routinely open the disk drive bay up and swap the drives. So the Disk 0 you see listed here gets removed, and I put the 232.88 GB OSDISK in and boot from it.

I do this as I have one laptop, but I have two disks for different work sets.

I cloned Disk 1 232.88 GB to a TB drive, resulting in another Disk 1 that has a lot of free space. When I install that cloned TB drive into my 6930p, it becomes Disk 0, but does not boot. I am not trying to use the cloned disk in a different machine.

So since the 232.88 GB disk boots just fine, and I clone it to a larger drive, then that larger drive should boot, but doesn't .

 

[Delta3Charlie]

Ok....I can't speak to all you've done so far, I don't know if it's salvageable with all you've done so far, but I DO have what I think is an easy and free solution.

I had to replace an older 500Gb drive on my desktop with a newer 1TB drive about 6 months ago, and again more recently, I wanted to replace the 1TB drive with a 240Gb SSD as the boot drive with the 1TB drive as the second drive on my system as the storage drive.

Both times, I used the free download of EaseUS Todo Backup Free (home version) and it works PERFECTLY. I shut down my desktop, plugged in the new SSD and ran the EaseUS Todo Backup. You want to be sure the source drive partition size isn't larger than your target drive (of COURSE!). You want to use the "Clone" operation instead of the backup. For about 160Gb of programs and data it took a little under 2 hours.

Now, after it was done, I tried to boot immediately with both drives still plugged in and using the BIOS boot manager specified the new SSD as the boot drive, thinking the computer now was configured with the SSD as the boot drive. The computer wouldn't boot. So I thought maybe if I unplugged the old 1TB drive SATA data cable, it would boot off the SSD, and it did. I checked the drive under the Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Disk Management option and it showed the new SSD as the boot drive.

After that, I shut down the computer and plugged the 1TB SATA cable back in and the computer then booted off the new SSD with the 1TB drive as the secondary active drive.

So if you're about done trying to solve your problem with the old backup program you used, you might want to blast the new drive clean and start over with the EaseUS Backup Todo Free download. For me it's bullet proof.

Best of luck,

Arne