Can't boot from newly cloned SSD drive

Hello, I'm attempting to upgrade my Windows 10 Home 64 bit PC from an HDD to an SSD, both 1TB in size. My goal is to have my SSD as my main boot drive and my HDD as a storage drive for my exceptionally large media files. I've already cloned my original hard drive using Macrium Reflect and currently trying to figure out how to boot from my SSD, but unfortunately upon selecting my new SSD from the BIOS startup menu my computer remains stuck on a black screen with a flashing white cursor in the top left.

Here is a screenshot of both my drives in Macrium Reflect post-cloning


As you can see I'm in dire need of freeing up space in my original hard drive (I've already cleared all my caches, trust me it's all media files ). I also switched my new SSD drive partition structure to GPT from MBR after cloning using AOMEI Partition Assistant. I don't know if this had any affect on my current problem but it's the only significant change I made after the cloning process.

Here is a screenshot of my Disk Management post-cloning


The original HDD is my C: drive and the SSD is D:

I should also note I attempted to use user SIW2's helpful program I found in this similar thread Cloned drive will not boot
I selected "D" under "FIX OS DRIVE LETTER" and under "AUTO BOOT REPAIR" I selected "C" as the active partition and "D" as the windows partition, but unfortunately I had the same results upon restarting my computer.

Fixing Windows boot problems - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase - KnowledgeBase v7.2 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

Look at the above regarding fixing boot problems with Macrium.

Are you sure you converted it to gpt? Doesn't look like it from your screenshot.

@topgundcp nailed it. The problem is that the SSD is GPT partitioned with an NTFS system partition. On most computers that will not boot at all in any mode because legacy BIOS (CSM) cannot boot from a GPT drive and most computers cannot boot in UEFI mode from an NTFS partition.

We are assuming that your computer is able to boot in UEFI mode. If it isn't able to boot in UEFI mode, then you need to leave the SSD as MBR, and mark the system partition as active.

I apologize for my late response. Shorty after posting this thread I attempted to fix the problem on my own and ended up catastrophically corrupting the boot partition on my original HDD using a mistyped "bcdedit" command (in an attempt to copy the boot partition files from my original to my source disk). I ended up spending $100 on an external drive enclosure for my HDD and a program called PCMover to recover my files, applications, and configuration settings from my original HDD. The PCMover transfer seems to have finally successfully cloned my original HDD to my SSD.

I had an epiphany after I already messed up my HDD that the reason my SSD didn't boot after the Macrium Reflect clone is because of that simple MBR to GPT conversion I decided to do, not knowing my computer apparently lacks UEFI. Coming back to this thread and reading the replies I'm almost certain now that that was the reason. A simple mistake that cost me 100 bucks, but I greatly appreciate everyone's help here.

DonMurray said:

so we are calling a command bcdboot from the windows directory and we are applying it to the Z: drive bcd boot is like format /s it puts stuff there on this partition that lets it boot. ? But does z contain the partition table or is z just for the boot ? [/B][/B]

All that is required for UEFI booting is for there to be a partition (and most computers require that partition to be FAT32) that contains a specific file structure and files. The bcdboot command creates those specific files. A partition (such as Z drive in this case) cannot contain the partition table. The partition table is located on a specific location on the hard drive, I believe track 0. Having the partition table located in a partition makes no sense, because the partition table is what defines the boundaries of the partitions on the disk. The partition assigned with the letter Z: only contains the files and folders that UEFI can read and boot the computer from.

Sorry if I’m late to this thread but I need some help myself. I’ve tried everything. I have a dell inspiron 15 5570. I decided to replace the RAM and the HDD. I bought a crucial 1TB SSD to use. I cloned over everything fine and that’s all good. My laptop is recognising the drive when it is plugged in through a USB. However when I take out the old HDD and replace it with the new SSD, I start up my laptop and it says no bootable devices found. I have looked Through so many videos and things trying to help but nothing is working. It cost a lot of money and I don’t want to break something. Anyone know how to help? Thank you