Booting from Macrium Free clone…

When I joined this forum it became obvious that Macrium was the software of choice for backing up so I have installed it and am doing my best to get it to run. Now what I want to do initially is to make a bootable clone.

From the MF User Guide …
I click on ‘clone this disk’
I click on ‘select a disc to clone to’
I click ‘next’
Then I get an error message –
‘Not all copied. Insufficient space’
Now I know that my destination disk is a bit smaller than my source disk BUT the amount of data to be cloned from the source disk is considerably less than the room on the destination disk so why does it give this error ?
However if I drag and drop the four partitions down from the source disk to the destination disk THEN click on next it appears to work. The source disc (a HK Hynix SSD) has 4 partitions and a report at the end of the operation tells me that each has been cloned successfully to the destination disc (an ADATA SSD) so I assume that everything is ok.

When I start my DELL Optiplex in one time boot (F12) I get the choice of booting to the Windows Boot Manager or the ADATA SU650 (my cloned SSD). Selecting the ADATA the computer takes a little longer to boot BUT invariably boots to the SK Hynix, i.e. the original system disc and not from the cloned disc. Now I notice that there is a paragraph In the MF User Guide which reads :-

“ Windows cannot boot from a USB connected drive. This is a restriction imposed by Windows. If you clone your system disk to a USB connected external drive then, to boot your clone, the physical disk must be removed from the USB caddy and attached to your Motherboard SATA port”

However I have read on lots of forums that ít IS possible to boot from a cloned drive, why am I having problems ?

The cloned drive is externally mounted in a small caddy connected to one of the USB3 ports on the Optiplex. Incidentally the cloning takes just under 30 minutes.

taid said:

When I joined this forum it became obvious that Macrium was the software of choice for backing up so I have installed it and am doing my best to get it to run. Now what I want to do initially is to make a bootable clone.

From the MF User Guide …
I click on ‘clone this disk’
I click on ‘select a disc to clone to’
I click ‘next’
Then I get an error message –
‘Not all copied. Insufficient space’
Now I know that my destination disk is a bit smaller than my source disk BUT the amount of data to be cloned from the source disk is considerably less than the room on the destination disk so why does it give this error ?
However if I drag and drop the four partitions down from the source disk to the destination disk THEN click on next it appears to work. The source disc (a HK Hynix SSD) has 4 partitions and a report at the end of the operation tells me that each has been cloned successfully to the destination disc (an ADATA SSD) so I assume that everything is ok.

When I start my DELL Optiplex in one time boot (F12) I get the choice of booting to the Windows Boot Manager or the ADATA SU650 (my cloned SSD). Selecting the ADATA the computer takes a little longer to boot BUT invariably boots to the SK Hynix, i.e. the original system disc and not from the cloned disc. Now I notice that there is a paragraph In the MF User Guide which reads :-

“ Windows cannot boot from a USB connected drive. This is a restriction imposed by Windows. If you clone your system disk to a USB connected external drive then, to boot your clone, the physical disk must be removed from the USB caddy and attached to your Motherboard SATA port”

However I have read on lots of forums that ít IS possible to boot from a cloned drive, why am I having problems ?

The cloned drive is externally mounted in a small caddy connected to one of the USB3 ports on the Optiplex. Incidentally the cloning takes just under 30 minutes.

You are having this problem because you must install the cloned drive to an internal SATA port. It will not boot using a USB connection.

Yes as @pbcopter stated, remove your current boot drive and replace it with the cloned drive. You should then be able to boot from that cloned drive.

taid said:

Now I notice that there is a paragraph In the MF User Guide which reads :-

“ Windows cannot boot from a USB connected drive. This is a restriction imposed by Windows. If you clone your system disk to a USB connected external drive then, to boot your clone, the physical disk must be removed from the USB caddy and attached to your Motherboard SATA port”

However I have read on lots of forums that ít IS possible to boot from a cloned drive, why am I having problems ?

It is untrue that you can't boot from external USB. Even Windows To Go is supplied and supported by MS.

Your PC firmware may limit it but Windows boots fine from any external media (I have tried SD card, USB 2, USB 3 and TB and all work).

While Windows will work your boot manager may not see it. Try installing rEFInd on a USB key, boot that and see if it finds your USB clone. IME it will.

Hi there
Wintousb will clone your current system to an external device and that device will be bootable - that's if you want a full windows system to be bootable from a USB device.

Note though the limitations with this software :

1) For windows versions > 1803 it's now paid for software although cheap.
2) It currently is not supported on Windows insider builds but works on current released builds
3) You can't re-clone the external USB windows system back to use on the standard internal HDD/SSD.

So for standard backups Macrium is fine

If you want to use a Windows to Go type system (works fine when installed on an external SSD connected to computer via USB3-->SATA connector ) then Hasleo's wintousb is fine subject to the restrictions I posted above.


@lx07
I've used rEFInd to boot Linux systems where loading from different devices e.fg /dev/sdb etc isn't a problem -- I was wondering would it boot a Windows image on the same device that rEFInd is on or would I still need the boot device and another target device for the OS.

Cheers
jimbo

jimbo45 said:

@lx07
I've used rEFInd to boot Linux systems where loading from different devices e.fg /dev/sdb etc isn't a problem -- I was wondering would it boot a Windows image on the same device that rEFInd is on or would I still need the boot device and another target device for the OS.

Yes it will. If you have rEFInd installed to /EFI/refind it will find the Windows boot loader on any connected volume. For UEFI this is /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgr.efi and can be on same EFI system partition.

This is mine for example

Code:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> mountvol s: /S
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> s:
PS S:\> ls -l /EFI/


    Directory: S:\EFI


Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                -------------         ------ ----
da----       18/12/2018     12:59                refind
d-----       21/04/2018     12:52                Microsoft
d-----       21/04/2018     12:59                Boot
d-----       13/11/2018     09:28                APPLE


PS S:\>

FlashBoot Pro can create bootable clone of any version of Windows starting from 8.1.
Also it can re-clone the external USB windows system back to use on the standard internal HDD/SSD.

cereberus said:

This is misleading. Wintousb is still free but you need the paid version for cloning to usb but there are ways around it.

Hi there
I think I meant for the latest (standard) release of windows all the useful functionality is now paid software whereas formely it was free.

Cheers
jimbo