HDD Clones and Boot Selection

I used Paragon Partition Manager 11 to make a clone of my "C" boot drive. "C" is the HDD in position 0. The clone is in position 1, which prior to the clone operation was "D". I am sure that if I removed HDD 0 and replaced it with HDD 1, the system would boot to Windows 7. (I have done this on an XP system in the past.)

But, I wanted to try and boot the clone without having to physically remove HDD 0. I am pretty sure that any SATA HDD can be used to boot, not just the first in the chain (HDD 0).

BUT, I haven't been able to get HDD 1 to boot. No matter what I try, HDD 0 continues to boot. I used Windows 7 PE to take HDD 0 offline, and then boot the system. The system placed HDD 0 online and booted it.

Any advice or insight will be very much appreciated, Jim

I'm wondering if you might have to change the boot order in the Bios. Just guessing here but it might be worth looking into.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, that was the first thing I tried. No luck. HDD 0 still boots. HDD1 may be first to boot in the BIOS, but HDD 0 still boots. I can tell what boots because I changed one of the icons on the HDD 0 desktop after I made the clone.

Regards, Jim

The system boots to the first active partition it comes to via the boot priority. If there was no active partition on the second hard drive and you set it first, the system would still go to the active partition on the other drive.

If both drives were set to boot (active partitions containing boot files), you may be able to use the F12 key (depending on your system)to choose another bootable device.

I have also seen situations with clone drives that messed up the Drive letters, so the BCD store might still be pointing to C: with the clone being something else.

A snipping tool picture of your Disk Management might help. You could attach it using the paper clip on Advanced replies.

Originally Posted by Saltgrass

The system boots to the first active partition it comes to via the boot priority. If there was no active partition on the second hard drive and you set it first, the system would still go to the active partition on the other drive.

If both drives were set to boot (active partitions containing boot files), you may be able to use the F12 key (depending on your system)to choose another bootable device.

I have also seen situations with clone drives that messed up the Drive letters, so the BCD store might still be pointing to C: with the clone being something else.

A snipping tool picture of your Disk Management might help. You could attach it using the paper clip on Advanced replies.

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I don't know what you mean by "snipping tool". I have EasyBCD on my PC, so I could post what is there, The clone was an exact copy of HDD 0, even the signature. So, there was a signature collision and the clone was set offline and was not assigned a drive letter, I assigned it it's original signature and assigned it letter "D", Maybe boot manager is still looking for "C" to boot?

Thanks again, Jim

Here is what the Windows Boot Loader has as seen from EasyBCD. Do I need an entry for the "D" drive in order for it to boot? Changing the boot order in the BIOS doesn't result in "D" booting.

There is one entry in the Windows bootloader.


Default: Windows 7 Professional on C
Timeout: Skipped
EasyBCD Boot Device: C:\


Entry #1
Name: Windows 7 Professional on C
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Thanks for any help, Jim

There is a more complete list of the BCD store in EasyBCD, but you can always open an administrative command prompt and type the following and enter after:

bcdedit

On my system, of which one install is Window 8 since I can't run two versions of Windows 7 with only one key, the list shows the currently booted OS as C: and the other one as another drive letter, depending on your system. Probably it should be the letter shown on the other OS partition.

OK, here is the more complete BCD store. Any comments?

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
path \bootmgr
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {60bc5d48-4172-11df-aa0d-f46aace4e982}
resumeobject {60bc5d44-4172-11df-aa0d-f46aace4e982}
displayorder {60bc5d48-4172-11df-aa0d-f46aace4e982}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 5
displaybootmenu No


Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {60bc5d48-4172-11df-aa0d-f46aace4e982}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7 Professional on C
locale en-US
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {26dae1b2-e6ec-11e0-b0f9-806e6f6e6963}

I put in a second entry for the clone and it did boot the clone when I selected it from the boot menu. There was one strange thing. When I changed the desktop icon layout on one system, it also changed on the other system? But I know it is booting two different systems because I have installed a couple of programs since I made the clone and they only show up when I boot the original.

Thanks for any additional insight, Jim

Since there may be more than one way to set up the boot system, I cannot say whether what you have is right or wrong. So I will just say if it works, then fine.

If you wanted to replace the BCD store for some reason, all you need to do is to open an administrative command prompt, and assuming C: is the Windows partition, type the following and enter after:

bcdboot C:\Windows

What effect this command might have on your other situation, hard to tell.

I posted this in another thread, and wanted to share it on this thread. I seems that a Paragon clone requires that the original be replaced with the clone as does an Acronis clone. But a Macrium Reflect clone can be booted without any hardware changes.

"I have done a lot more research on clones. It seems that Acronis requires that the clone be installed in place of the original if you want to boot it as a test. And Acronis boots to a Linux system to do the clone. Reason is to prevent Windows from making a change while the clone process is underway.

Macrium Reflect 5.0 takes a "snapshot" of the original and makes the clone from the snapshot. Windows continues to run. I cloned my "C" boot drive to a second HDD "G". Then I changed the HDD boot order in the BIOS to boot the "G" HDD. The "G" drive booted. Windows Disk Manager showed "C" drive still there but the drive was no longer marked as "System" or "Boot". The original "G" clone was marked "System" and "Boot" and drive letters assigned as "H" for System Reserved and "D" as the Windows partition. And when I changed the boot back to the "C" drive, "C" booted and all drive letters and "System" and "Boot" marks were changed back to original values.

PERFECT!! Just what I want. An exact clone of my system disk that I can boot to test, without having to remove and replace any hardware.

Thanks for all of the insight and help, Jim"

And thanks to people in this thread who have offered insight and help, Jim