Windows 10 boot loader woes after drive transfer

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gigatexal

I'm here to learn
Nov 25, 2012
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alexandarnarayan.com
This is something I haven't seen before.

I took an old box and changed the disk from a 1TB spindle to a 1TB SSD. I used dd to the the bit for bit copy of the drive to the new SSD and then had to work some windows magic to get the drive letter on the new SSD to become C:\ instead of X:\.

BUT here's the kicker, after every windows update (they happen a ton) the boot loader seems unable to find windows to boot. I have to boot into windows recovery using a thumbstick and run the various fixmbr fixbootsect things to get it to boot.

Thoughts?
 

William

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2015
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I usually use Arconis for images, haven't had any problems so far with that.

Have you tried EasyBCD to fix the boot loader ?
 
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William

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2015
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I have Arconis running an incremental backup everyday, its been a wonderful life saver at times :)
 

chilipepperz

Active Member
Mar 17, 2016
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Windows 10 by chance? You can use the "Reset PC" option. Basically reinstalls windows, but keeps your files and programs. I did it last weekend on my father-in-law's computer, worked really well.
High risk job there.

I'd just transfer files to a NAS and re-install windows.
 

Blazer

New Member
Jul 25, 2015
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prolly too late now, but, in admin tools is recovery drive, use it to create a usb drive and boot from it with the orig drive removed and the new drive connected, restore windows using it and the partition info will be correct, windows will be activated, bootloader will be correct, its the simplist way to move to another hard drive without any hassle.
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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prolly too late now, but, in admin tools is recovery drive, use it to create a usb drive and boot from it with the orig drive removed and the new drive connected, restore windows using it and the partition info will be correct, windows will be activated, bootloader will be correct, its the simplist way to move to another hard drive without any hassle.
Did not know this ! Really useful way to move a validated install to new hardware.
 

William

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2015
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Also to note about Arconis.
You can mount the backups in VMworkstation Pro if you want to test things before doing it to your main rig.
 

K D

Well-Known Member
Dec 24, 2016
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High risk job there.

I'd just transfer files to a NAS and re-install windows.
Not risky at all. I do it every few months to keep my windows install clean. But I use a custom recovery image instead of the default one so that I do t have to reinstall my main programs
 
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i386

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2016
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I used dd to the the bit for bit copy of the drive to the new SSD
I think this might be the source of your problems.
Intel and Samsung used to ship some software (file level instead of block level!) with their ssd desktop kits to migrate existing windows installations from hdds to ssd. The reason was something with alignment or so that was handled diffferently on ssds than on hdds.
 
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vl1969

Active Member
Feb 5, 2014
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damn, I should have penned a thread before I did the change. When I upgraded my older mac laptops from spinning rust to ssd the dd method was seamless I just assumed windows would be too.
you know? when you "ASSUME" you make an "A$$" out of "U" and "ME" :)

on the serious note however just remember for future use, Windows is different, what works for most other OS might break the windows. especially windows 7 and up.

hope you can fix your issue without reinstall.