No Recovery Partition on cloned NVMe SSD

Davidt99 · 19 May 2021

I have used Aomei Backupper to clone a Windows 10 Pro SATA3 SSD to a new NVMe M2 SSD. It went well and I now have a new boot drive but the cloning process did not copy over the Recovery Partition from the original SSD. Is that a problem?

Thanks

dalchina · 19 May 2021

Hi, you've not said if yours is a MBR or a UEFI installation. I'll assume the latter, lacking a screenshot of your partitions.

UEFI installations typically have 4 partitions. Presumably you chose to transfer 3 of the 4. (Have a look with a 3rd party partition manager).

The Recovery partition provides
- advanced startup options
- automatic repair

For example, you can't boot to a command prompt, to Safe Mode... without it.
You can still boot to advanced startup options if you boot your PC from a Win 10 install disk.

The choice is yours.. On any full feature update (upgrade) you can expect one to be created. 21H1 isn't one.

AddRAM · 19 May 2021

Next time remember to clone everything.

You can always do it again

We like to recommend Macrium Reflect Free.

Macrium Software | Reflect Free

Davidt99 · 19 May 2021

I ran the disk clone again and this is the result. Disk 0 (MBR) was cloned to disk 2

No Recovery Partition on cloned NVMe SSD-clone-capture.jpg

The 857MB recovery partition appears on the new boot ssd as just a 863MB primary partition. The other partitions are ok and when disk 2 is the boot drive change accordingly, the new NVMe ssd boots fine.

steve108 · 19 May 2021

Davidt99 said:

I ran the disk clone again and this is the result. Disk 0 (MBR) was cloned to disk 2

The 857MB recovery partition appears on the new boot ssd as just a 863MB primary partition. The other partitions are ok and the new NVMe ssd boots fine.

What did you do different between 1st and 2nd clone?

Davidt99 · 19 May 2021

steve108 said:

What did you do different between 1st and 2nd clone?

Nothing. I will also want the unallocated partition added to the boot partition or shrink the boot partition and add it to the unallocated partition.

steve108 · 19 May 2021

Davidt99 said:

Nothing. I will also want the unallocated partition added to the boot partition or shrink the boot partition and add it to the unallocated partition.

I would use MiniTool Partition Wizard to do that

SIW2 · 19 May 2021

Free Partition Manager Software for Windows - AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

NavyLCDR · 19 May 2021

This is what I would do:

Before cloning, run the command:

Code:

reagentc /disable

Then clone only the system reserved partition and the Windows partition. Forget about the recovery partition, it is no longer needed. After cloning and booting from the new SSD and everything working, run the following command:

Code:

reagentc /enable

You now will have Windows running on the new SSD, and your recovery environment will be active and will be located at C:\Recovery.

Davidt99 · 19 May 2021

Thanks for all the replies. I just don't understand why the recovery partition is created but not marked as the recovery partition. I will have a look at Macrium and see if that does the clone correctly.