#BOOT DRIVE CLONED TO NEW DISK BUT WINDOWS NOT ACTIVATED INSTALL#
#BOOT DRIVE CLONED TO NEW DISK BUT WINDOWS NOT ACTIVATED WINDOWS 10#
#BOOT DRIVE CLONED TO NEW DISK BUT WINDOWS NOT ACTIVATED WINDOWS#

#BOOT DRIVE CLONED TO NEW DISK BUT WINDOWS NOT ACTIVATED WINDOWS#

It's been years since I last cloned a Windows (to a different drive), but if I recall it correctly a cloned Windows is able to correct itself on its first boot. The clone wouldn't boot properly because its Registry Keys pointed to the old partition. Didn't work and tipped me off about it not being about the BCD.

#BOOT DRIVE CLONED TO NEW DISK BUT WINDOWS NOT ACTIVATED INSTALL#

P.s.: Before the gparted thing I also tried to do a fresh install in a new partition then clone the source Win 10 over it. Nor does chkdsk.ĭoing a normal boot on the other hand results in a screen that won't even show the login screen, is unresponsive to all shortcuts tried (Crtl+Shift+Esc, Win+P, Win+L, Win+Ctrl+Shift+B, Crtl+Alt+Del), won't display a context menu upon right clicks and generally eats the cursor (it's not visible until moved and disappears after a second idle, no spinning icon at all). Sfc and dism /online find no errors to repair.

Taking a look at the Event Viewer log reveals an endless list of 'DCOM got error '1084' attempting to start the service ShellHWDetection with arguments 'Unavailable' in order to run the server' errors, which I suspect are the reason behind the blinking cursor. Ctrl+Shift+Esc brings up the Task Manager, and from there I can open the cmd, explorer, etc. The cursor won't stop blinking and spinning. Trying to login gets me an ' Unknown hard error' by Sihost.exe. Trying to boot into it in safe mode gets me as far as to the login screen (!!!).

#BOOT DRIVE CLONED TO NEW DISK BUT WINDOWS NOT ACTIVATED WINDOWS 10#

Turns out the issue with the cloned Windows 10 isn't about the bcd, or not about it alone. Is there a way to make the source Windows 10 install invisible to the Recovery Mode/cloned install without physically removing the disk or deleting the partition? I'd like to delete the source only once I'm sure the clone works. Questions: I suspect this is one of the cases in which Windows sprawls everywhere and gets confused, preventing itself from repairing whatever issues or creating correct entries until it loses access to the installations it shouldn't be touching in first place. The saving grace is that undoing the bcd changes is pretty straightforward, so the original 8.1 and 10 installs boot fine. I know I should have removed the NVMe at this point but it'd require to take the entire computer apart, as it's at the bottom of the mobo in a very tight mini-itx case. I then tried to clone the source to a different SSD with a new EFI Partition pointing only to that new Windows 10 clone, also deleting the EFI partition from the NVMe so there's only one possible EFI System Partition to boot from, but it still doesn't work, getting me a blue screen this time around. I've tried to remove the entry pointing to the source Windows 10 and rename its Windows folder so only the clone remains in the boot but it didn't help either.

Trying to bootrec, bcdboot copy, delete and rebuild everything doesn't work. Then I used the Windows Recovery mode to create an entry for the new partition.

I want to extend the Windows 10 install to the left, and afaik it can be only done by cloning/reinstalling.Īttempts: I booted on a Linux pendrive and did a dd clone to a new partition in the unallocated space in the same drive. Why: I've got a M.2 NVMe with the following structure:

Issue: Windows 10 clones to same disk/different SSD won't boot.

Boot drive cloned to new disk but windows not activated