Using a cloned system drive the first time.

I’m using a win10 EUFI computer v1909 with only one hard drive bay.

I want a second drive to use if I have serious problems. Normally, it will be stored somewhere. It doesn’t replace periodic backups.

I’ll use Macirum Reflect to clone the entire internal drive to another drive in an external drive enclosure, then install the cloned drive in the computer in place of the existing drive and disconnect the external drive enclosure. Will the computer start normally?

After reading How to make cloned drive bootable? , I don’t think so, because it will not boot. What should I do? Remember that I only have one internal drive, and the posts in this thread seem to use two internal drives

Jim

You cant clone a drive thats in use so yo clone the drive you need to boot from MR bootable source it should then boot with no problems

Samuria said:

You cant clone a drive thats in use so yo clone the drive you need to boot from MR bootable source it should then boot with no problems

You most certainly can clone a drive that is in use. With a program such as Macrium Reflect, the only difference between cloning the drive and creating an image is that the output writes to actual partitions on the target drive rather than to a single file on the target drive.

Why do you want to do this? Most people use Reflect to image their system then recover the image in case of problems. I 've done this many times without any problems,

Steve C said:

Why do you want to do this? Most people use Reflect to image their system then recover the image in case of problems. I 've done this many times without any problems,

One reason would be if you only have 1 extra drive. If you image, and your primary fails, you need 2 extra drives to restore your system. You need a replacement drive for the one that failed, and the spare drive the image is saved on.

If you clone, you only need 1 extra drive. If your primary driver fails, swap in the clone and your back in business.