Cloned windows 10 HDD wont boot on new material

Hey helpers !

Here is my issue that starting to get to me.
I have upgraded my setup, changing my case, pcu, gpu, motherboards and RAM.

My plan was to clone my windows 10 SSD sata to my new M.2. The problem was that my old motherboard did have a M.2 slot. So i have cloned my SSD to a HDD 2.5" sata in hope to get it to boot on my new pc to clone it on the M.2.

Well... it didnt worked. My MSI Z490 gaming edge wifi motherboard doesnt seem to think it is a bootable drive. My new pc is always booting on BIOS, not even allowing me to put it in the boot order chain. The bios does recognize its a HDD but seems to think its a data HDD.

Ive tried to boot the HDD on my old pc and suprise, it worked perfectly well...

What am i missing here ?

I have tried different strategies I've found around the web but none worked. I insist on doing this instead of a fresh install cause I have an app installed that allows me to do remote work and access secured work database from home.. thats the only reason really. They cant reinstall it.. its COVID and the TI are not allowed to go at employees places... I know..

Sorry for this long post. Trying to be specific.
Thanks a lot for your help.

Welcome to TenForums!

If that drive booted successfully on the old PC as you noted, then the drive is okay.

On the new system, make sure that your settings for the drive in your BIOS are correct. For example, if the settings on the old system were to run the drive in AHCI mode, make sure that the settings for the drive in the new system are also AHCI.

Also, if you have other drives attached in the new system, try detaching thm to keep it simple initially. Then, in the BIOS, make sure that this new drive is configured as the boot drive. Since it will be the only drive attached initially, it should make it easy to pick the right drive since there will be no other choice.

I'll try it and report. Thanks

What boot mode do you have on your old vs new systems? If old is legacy and new system is UEFI it won't recognize the drive as bootable. Need to check your BIOS boot mode settings.

Both are UEFI

Did you clone only the C: drive partition, or did you also clone the EFI System Partition?

There are actually 3 partitions: data, windows, reserved to system

Then it seems like you missed the EFI System Partition which would appear to be on a different drive.

This is the standard UEFI disk layout in disk management:



However, there is one partition hidden that does not show in disk management:

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19042.746]
(c) 2020 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.610

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: DESKTOP-HMBLR78

DISKPART> sel dis 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> lis par

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    System             100 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Reserved            16 MB   101 MB
  Partition 3    Primary            118 GB   117 MB
  Partition 4    Recovery           575 MB   118 GB

It sounds like you are missing the first partition, EFI System Partition.

If you are showing a "System Reserved" partition in disk management, then you likely have an MBR formatted drive that is booting in CSM mode and that is how you will need to boot it in the new computer.

Yes this is it. I have converted the MBR disk to GIT to make it bootable on a UEFI (its my understanding of what I've read)... but still it doesn't work. Any idea of what I should do now ?

Thanks a lot for your time and support