Solved Cloned Hard drive does not boot

Hello,
My SAS RAID1 system using SCSI drives failed last week with one drive broken. (12 years old!)
I decided to change to SATA as SCSI is too expensive.

I cloned my good working old SAS SCSI drive to a newer SATA drive using Macrium Reflect.
The old drive on the SAS controller but without RAID and the new drive on a motherboard SATA slot (4)
It indicated success and I can see the same files etc.
But, the new drive will not boot.

This is a Windows 7 system on a Dell Precision T5500 workstation with a SAS 6 controller

So far tried:
1: Replace old drive with new drive onto the same SAS controller connector/slot as well as SATA on the MB.
The new cloned drive gets discovered as Disk1 but no boot. (The old disk came up as Disk0 in the same slot)

2: Checked with Windows Disk manager to see the partitions. They are all there correctly but on the new drive they are not "active" and I don't see the word Boot in any.
The menu option to activate then is greyed out for all partitions.

3: I tried using the Windows recovery CD to fix it but after booting, is says:
"This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of windows.". I spent hours tried various solutions for that problem but none worked. I had to give that up.

4: I made a Macrium Reflect repair CD. That boots and finds a windows installation on the drive but does not show any partitions at all so it also cannot continue with "Please select a partition"

5: I used diskpart to try and set the partiton 1 on the new drive DISK 1 to active but then I get:
"The selected disk is not a fixed MBR disk.
The ACTIVE command can only be used on fixed MBR disks."

6: I tried setting the BIOS Boot options to LEGACY but there is no such setting on this BIOS.
7: I used Windows backup to create a disk image to an external HDD.
But, again, I get the same error as in 3: above :-(

I am out of ideas now and I am hoping someone here knows how I can solve this issue.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Well, at some stage during this struggle, I deleted the RAID array in the BIOS of the SAS controller. The drive then became a normal SCSI harddrive and it boots and operates fine. Similarly, my 2nd 'faulty' harddrive from the array, also boots fine when I exchange it for the good one. So I think that is likely not the issue or is that a wrong assumption?

No, the newly cloned is SATA drive is not working (not booting), no change. Only the old SCSI drives boot. Both can boot but one is full of errors.
I really need to somehow get the SATA drive to take over from the old SCSI drives.

Let me rephrase the question:
How do I transfer everything from a working SCSI drive to a new SATA drive ?

My source drive is error free and 100% working.
Re=installing is not a good option since a lot of applications and stuff that I use are no longer available. The CDs are gone.

My previous clone was successful except the partitions cannot boot or be set to active for some unknown reason.

Bruce said:

you are coming from a SAS RAID to a SATA non-RAID.
I've never done that. the one time a got my hands on a SAS controlled rig, I instantly removed the other three drives and reloaded Win Server anew.

reckon this will be your solution in the end!

but to try some other options - when using Macrium did you tell it to clone all the partitions?
and being some sort of corporate PC (to have SCSI raid array), has the BIOS been configured somehow to look for the SAS controller?

some time in the future, you are going to have to reload those programs again, and that will occur when you don't have the spare time like you have now, with no pressure, taking your time to hunt down those software packages.

Click to expand...

This was a corporate PC long before I obtained it. It must have cost big $$. I use it for WFH. I am an engineer and I use it at least 8h per day.

Yes, all the partitions were cloned and it was successful. They just cannot activate or become bootable. Or at least not with the knowledge and tools I have here. I really need a method to get up and running fast if anything fails in the future.

The PC BIOS does not detect or have settings for the SAS card at all. It uses a method to extend the BIOS or something like that. It comes up as a seperate BIOS like message during boot and has its own way to get into its settings.


The whole reason I am doing this now is to get ready for that event in the future. Currently, I still have a good drive to work from.


At the moment, I am trying to use Macrium Relfect to make a backup image instead of clone. I have wiped the new HDD with diskpart CLEAN.
I will know in about 5 hours if that is any better but likely not.

I just discovered that my old disk is is an MBR and the new disk is GPT.

That seems to be the main difference.

I have it working now!!!
I fised it. Old school.

I used diskpart to delete the partitions on the new drive.
The I used diskpart to convert to MBR.
The I created a new partition.

Thereafter, I re-cloned.
The Macrium Reflect then cloned it as MBR this time.

@PeterOz: One would assume that clone means making it identical to the old and it should correct GPT to MBR if the source drive is MBR. But that is not the case. This has cost me days to figure out.