Win 10 Anniversary cloning problems

Richard_153

Commendable
Aug 8, 2016
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1,510
Installed Win10 Anniversary without issues. I attempted to clone my new Win10. The clone again no issues. The clone was done from an SSD to a larger HDD. This I had done many times with Win 10 with no problems. This time was the first time on Anniversary.
When I tried to boot the clone (HDD) it looked OK at first got past the "blue Window flag and the "progress circle" then the circle changed to slightly different more frantic circle progress indicator... BUT the lock/signon screen never came.
After trying the whole process again on a different target HDD, with the same results. (at least 3 times)
I decided to clone to another SSD. That worked fine and booted perfectly.
I tried using different SATA cables, SATA ports, even tried Acronis WD version as well as AOMEI Backerupper ver 3.5.
All clones run perfectly but only if the target is an SSD.
I'm stumped.
Any ideas?
 
Solution
You should never use an SSD image for an HDD image. Windows actually understands the difference, which improves the life span of your SSD and uses it's full performance.

Richard_153

Commendable
Aug 8, 2016
5
0
1,510


Thanks for you your answer.
I probably wasn't clear.
I run day-to-day using only a single 256GB SSD.

I don't keep any HDD on my PC. But once or twice a month I may insert an old HDD and clone the entire contents of my active SSD to that HDD. I then boot the HDD to make sure it boots. Otherwise I don't use that HDD unless there is a emergency.
This procedure has worked flawlessly for several years, certainly on 8.1, 8.0, 7 and possibly since Vista).

But when I attempted to clone my new Anniversary Win 10 SSD to an HDD, I can NOT get that well-tested procedure to work.
The cloning appears to work, the cloning process goes smoothly, no errors.
But the HDD target will not complete a test boot.
The boot starts okay, the drive is recognized, the Windows Blue Logo comes up followed by twirling circle but the boot never gets to the Lock Screen nor the Sign On Screen.

If I cloning is done to an SSD, that works.

If this is something new on the Anniversary Update of Windows 10, I can deal with that.

But I haven't read anything that suggest this is a change implemented in this new version of Win 10.




 
There's been a ton of news about disappearing partitions and secure boot related driver restrictions with anniversary update, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear about HDD vs SSD issues. Have you tried mounting the image as a virtual drive in hyper-v to test?
 

Richard_153

Commendable
Aug 8, 2016
5
0
1,510


 

Richard_153

Commendable
Aug 8, 2016
5
0
1,510
Thx again.... No I haven't tried that. To be honest I haven't used hyper-v. I'll read up on that give it a try.
I have 3 different PCs and several HDDs that I can play with, just to see if it's some sort of issue with my #1 PC's hardware or the target HDDs.
Of course, it could be an Win10 Anniversary bug/new feature.
It's not an end-of-the-world issue... but it it is nice to have 3 or 4 bookable clones of you system to fall back on.
And cloning SSD to SSD does seem to work fine.

 
Yup, backups are always a good idea. Hopefully there will be a bit more info on those underlying changes in the next few weeks as more people move to 1607 (and have issues). You can also try the microsoft forum or their help chat, your question is not a common one so even they might not be helpful, but it's worth giving it a shot.

I'll be taking a look to see if something pops up, but as of yet there's nothing concrete
 

Richard_153

Commendable
Aug 8, 2016
5
0
1,510


It's what I get for being anal about backups and doing stuff hardly anyone else does.