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#21
"Taking the piss" is a phrasal verb in English meaning to joke with someone. The assumption being that the other person is not aware and is therefore seen as slightly stupid. It isn't especially rude - more like a joke
I thought you assumed I was an idiot. Never mind.
OK I'll try.
When you start your computer it will look for something to do. As you have a Mac we'll start from there.
What it will do is (after checking the RAM works OK and so on during the POST step) have a look in the NVRAM (which is a chip in your mac). It will say "ah-ha" I remember lets try running <Whatever>. NVRAM just means a chip that doesn't forget.
Before you get to the OS the firmware will try to run something. This will be something that is defined by the EFI standards and exists in a partition with a certain type code (7).
If that volume exists it will look for a directory called EFI. After that it gets a bit boring but eventually it will find a EFI program called a bootmanager. What bootmanager it picks by default is not clear (it depends on the manufacturer) but the last one it ran will be stored in the NVRAM.
The boot manager will generally try internal, external, USB, DVD, SD, even your phone if it is connected.
MacOS will include any drives it can find and boot them. You can boot MacOS off your TV if you want if the wire is connected. The MacOS loader is a it finichity about running anything apart from MacOS or Windows on a Bootcamp partition. It is quite happy with Linux though.
Windows will say "Is this drive I'm running on internal?" It will then say no. It will only boot internal drives.
If you use a different boot loader then you can boot whatever OS from whatever storage you want. That would be my recommendation and my recommendation would be to use rEFInd.
I had to read up on that expression on Wikipedia.
Not sure where you got that idea, but no, I wasn't making fun of you.
Also not sure what prompted the lesson on booting, but thanks anyways!
Yes, I understood you that on a PC, Windows expects an internal drive when booting.
Got it.
BTW, do you speak cockney, or is your "Taking the piss" just a general UK expression?
Here is a video of using Macrium Reflect Cloning feature. This uses the example of Cloning 1 hard drive to a Bigger new drive.
This might show you some of the features of the cloning process better. Just click on the link below.
Cloning a disk using Macrium Reflect - YouTube
Lots of posts but when it comes down to it difference between cloning and images is simple.
You clone a drive to make an exact copy of an existing drive eg upgrading to larger drive or ssd.
You make images of an existing drive to a another drive, with primary intent to restore image to SAME drive that was backed up e.g. Windows has got corrupted or infected with ransomware.
It just so happens you can restore image to a DIFFERENT drive i.e. same as cloning but a two step process involving a tertiary drive.
Problem with cloning as a backup method is that it wipes the target drive. An image backup is simply another compressed file on a drive.