Solved Drive Clone Boot Failure

Bought a Crucial NVME/PCIe to clone my OS from my Samsung SSD. Used BalenaEtcher to clone my drive, process went successfully and followed instructions carefully. Restarted my PC, booted to BIOS and switched the boot priority to my new NVME clone.

Got a boot error from Windows boot management that the boot configuration data is missing or corrupt. Switched the boot priority back to my original OS Samsung drive, but the same error happens on boot - even when I unscrewed and removed the NVME straight from the Motherboard. Which I don't understand at all since I simply cloned from the drive and the OS and all files should still be intact on my original SSD.

I've tried using Windows repair, command prompts to repair and restore the BCD, but no good. Could really use some advice - I've spent the past few days trying to fix this for what should be a relatively easy process. According to peeps online, anyway.

Help? Thank you!

Thank you for your response.

I was following guides and not once was told that the hardware and software had to match up. Apologies if I sound a bit like a rookie here, but to clarify because I was cloning Windows 10 from a Samsung SSD to a Crucial, you believe that's the reason it toasted?

I always knew a fresh OS install would help bring a bit more life and stability back to my system, but honestly I was hoping to avoid it for all the work that needs to be done redownloading programs and reconfiguring settings. Your point is definitely noted though.

Is there absolutely no other way to help restore my original Samsung OS drive?

phillpower2 said:

Is the Samsung SSD the SATA or NVME type.

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It's SATA. I was cloning Windows to the Crucial which is an NVME.

Well, I've certainly learnt the hard way. Prior to this, simply installing the NVME made my Samsung drive disappear off BIOS. I had no bootable OS. After hours of messing with the boot priority options, and removing the new NVME off my board to no avail, I took it to a PC shop thinking my Samsung SSD somehow fried only to be told some motherboards only recognise so many SATA ports - I had to unplug one of my drives for it to register.

25 - 30 bucks extra spent just to be told that nugget. Again, no warnings online despite all the research I did. And here I am trying to avoid paying more to sort out my Samsung OS that somehow corrupted through cloning.

Thanks for the advice and knowledge, even if it's a bit too late. I've reinstalled Windows on my NVME so far after Pyro's advice and spent hours trying to reinstall or copy installations off my old drive. But I'd still appreciate any way to make the drive bootable if there is one. Good learning experience I suppose.

At least I have Easter eggs today as some comfort in this mess lol.

EDIT: Just to note, I have two extra hard drives where I install my programs to, and do my best not to install everything on my Windows drive. I'm lucky in that regard as my current situation could have been made much worse, but some programs won't let me redirect their installations to another drive. Sorry if this is basic stuff, but any advice how to avoid that in future and keep my Windows bootable drive as clutter free as possible?

Thanks for all your comments so far, appreciate it.

Thank you both for your knowledge. 🙏

@PeterOz I unplugged my NVME and attempted repairs on my Samsung SSD but it was just no good. I also tried the numerous command prompts for rebuilding BCD but the error still occurred. Thankfully most of my important files had been backed up, but I admit I was a bit too self-confident and didn't bother making a 'to date' one. Still, my data loss is minimal. Otherwise I'd be running around imitating irl GTA right now.

I thought this would be a simply procedure and had no idea about all the complications involved - including differing drive types causing clones errors. (Thanks Obama.) I've heard MSI motherboards have a bad habit of changing the boot priority as much as Windows likes to write to other drives. I did leave my two HDD's in admittedly, but triple checked my clone target in the software I used and boot priority listings. Noted for future though.

As it stands, I'm running Windows off my fresh OS install on my Crucial NVME as @Pyro and @phillpower2 suggested - thanks peeps. I can see everything on my Samsung SSD, which is frustrating, but also a relief. I'm planning on formatting the drive for fresh use once I make sure all my data is moved across/programs reinstalled, because I think it's a lost cause at this point.

One last question, but I had one or two files in my old OS systems Downloads folder. Navigating to it from my new OS, it's completely wiped. Everything that was in it is gone. I've ran Recuva software to try and find what I'm looking for, but it didn't even find one single salvageable file on Deep Scan. Any help with this or is this also a lost cause?

Legend. Great piece of kit, found it straight away. Think I'm settled enough to sort everything out myself now so feel free to close up the thread. Should anything else go awry I'll be sure to get back in touch. Thank you all again for your time and patience.

Spoke too soon. Noticed my system reserved partition is on my Seagate HDD (disk 0) instead of my Crucial with my new OS (disk 3). Been looking into moving it but there's lots of warnings about things going wrong and possibly having to restore the whole OS all over again. Needless to say, don't want to be doing that anytime soon. Any advice?

PeterOz said:

I will try and find the instructions I have used before for this.

That is why I posted this advise.

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Thank you. And I understand, sadly this is all advice after the fact of reinstalling my OS. I didn't know before.

Thank you for that, I'll look into it.

I do. Yes, it's a GPT. My Seagate and Samsung are MBRs. My Crucial NVME and Toshiba are GPTs.

I haven't tried that. At this point I'm a little reluctant since I've spent so much time restoring my system over the past few days to how it once was. (And embarrassed at the mess I've made.) Do you think if I boot without Disk 0 my old OS may come back into the fold if I boot priority my SATA SSD?

I'm trying to follow AOMEI Backupper but I'm having trouble. I want to move system reserved from Disc 0 to disc 3, but not only do I have two active partitions which make this confusing (Samsung SSD (D: ) and System Reserved (H: ) but the tutorial video suggests cloning the OS to an external HDD if using their software. Which would just make a new system reserved partition on the external, and not actually move the one I have from disc 0.



At current I'm working on clearing my external HDD to make another system clone in case I botch the process by doing it manually in Disk Management, but cloning is how I got into this mess to begin with. Leaning towards @PeterOz 's signature of 'If in Doubt Do Nothing'.