Boot from external HDD

[ass12345hole]

Ok so i had an asus rog and the motherboard fried, so i took it in and had both the ssd and the hdd cloned i think is the right word, and now i have a new alienware laptop, thanks to best buys replacement plan, and would like to boot into windows from my external hdd to get all my stickynote info and grab my installers and everything that was on the ssd but the new laptop isnt recognizing the external as being bootable even though i was told it would, is there just some setting im missing to be able to do this? Or am i jusr SOL on it?

 

[Barty1884]

While it's theoretically possible, Windows really isn't meant to be run from external drives - so actually getting it to work isn't always easy.

Were both an SSD and an HDD cloned to a single external HDD? I don't think that's possible, while maintaining your boot partition(s) etc....

If the SSD is cloned, then all data went with it. You could install Windows to the SSD now, then connect the external drive later - to explore/recover data.

You could also create a bootable linux USB, boot from it and use it to explore the contents of the external drive to recover anything you need.
Installers are probably a waste though - should all be readily available online.

 

[USAFRet]

Ok so i had an asus rog and the motherboard fried, so i took it in and had both the ssd and the hdd cloned i think is the right word, and now i have a new alienware laptop, thanks to best buys replacement plan, and would like to boot into windows from my external hdd to get all my stickynote info and grab my installers and everything that was on the ssd but the new laptop isnt recognizing the external as being bootable even though i was told it would, is there just some setting im missing to be able to do this? Or am i jusr SOL on it?

Assuming the new Alienware actually boots up, and your old drive actually still works...you do NOT need to boot from that old drive to copy info from it.

GeekSquad telling you the old drive would be "bootable from an external connection" is typical of GeekSquad. As in...completely wrong.
Doesn't work like that.

You should, however, be able to access it as a secondary drive and different drive letter. Copy what you need from it.

 

[ass12345hole]

Nah it wasnt geek squad they wanted $100 to try and recover my data so i took to a smaller place that only charged me 50 to clone the old drives and really, really need some of the info off the sticky notes in particular so does anyone know the file path for it? The new alienware laptop boots perfectly on its own i just had some super important stuff in the old stickies and need it recovered.

 

[USAFRet]

Nah it wasnt geek squad they wanted $100 to try and recover my data so i took to a smaller place that only charged me 50 to clone the old drives and really, really need some of the info off the sticky notes in particular so does anyone know the file path for it? The new alienware laptop boots perfectly on its own i just had some super important stuff in the old stickies and need it recovered.

If they had actually "cloned" whatever was on the old drive(s) would be in the new system already.

But...look in the new OS for the path to where stickynotes exists.
Then, look in the old drive in that same path.

 

[Solandri]

You should, however, be able to access it as a secondary drive and different drive letter. Copy what you need from it.

This. The only gotcha is that programs like stickynote often store your data in an unusual place or format which isn't readable unless you're actually running the program. Kinda like it can be next to impossible to pull bookmarks out of a browser simply by accessing the browser program files on disk. You need to use the export function while the browser is running to do that.

If you run into this roadblock, post a followup and I'll give instructions on how to try converting your cloned boot disk into a virtual machine. That will (if it succeeds) let you "boot" off the old disk image in a window, allowing you to run those programs and export or get your data out.

 

[ass12345hole]

Ya i have no idea how to find the path for it as this was the first computer i used sticky notes on but im sitting here in front of the new laptop and as long as the insructions are clear and precise i can follow them

 

[Solandri]

First thing I'd try is a google search for the sticky notes program you were using. Hopefully it stored your data in text format, just in some obscure path. Unfortunately every company which makes a sticky note program calls it sticky notes (since Post-It is trademarked), so unless you give the software maker's name, we can't help find the path for you.

 

[ass12345hole]

First thing I'd try is a google search for the sticky notes program you were using. Hopefully it stored your data in text format, just in some obscure path. Unfortunately every company which makes a sticky note program calls it sticky notes (since Post-It is trademarked), so unless you give the software maker's name, we can't help find the path for you.

sorry new to this whole thing I normally don't have issues a quick google search cant answer, but its the one that came pre installed on windows and I even have it on the new one but the .exe and .snt files arent where google says they should be, and i do have hidden files shown so i'm guessing the makers name is microsoft.

 

[ass12345hole]

You should, however, be able to access it as a secondary drive and different drive letter. Copy what you need from it.

This. The only gotcha is that programs like stickynote often store your data in an unusual place or format which isn't readable unless you're actually running the program. Kinda like it can be next to impossible to pull bookmarks out of a browser simply by accessing the browser program files on disk. You need to use the export function while the browser is running to do that.

If you run into this roadblock, post a followup and I'll give instructions on how to try converting your cloned boot disk into a virtual machine. That will (if it succeeds) let you "boot" off the old disk image in a window, allowing you to run those programs and export or get your data out.

 

[ass12345hole]

I think I ran into a larger roadblock as I saw another thread that says windows stickynotes don't use the appdata folder so that's why I can't find a .snt file for them so it looks like I will need to "boot" the old disk image in a window. if you could send instructions or even a link to another thread that tells me how you would be a lifesaver

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah, I'd never used stickynotes beofore, so I tried it.

Created a couple, searched for .snt. No luck.
Rebooted...searched for .snt.
Could not find.

Open StickyNotes...there are the two I created. No idea where they are stored.

 

[Solandri]

I think I ran into a larger roadblock as I saw another thread that says windows stickynotes don't use the appdata folder so that's why I can't find a .snt file for them so it looks like I will need to "boot" the old disk image in a window. if you could send instructions or even a link to another thread that tells me how you would be a lifesaver

Well, that leaves you with the painful method of (trying to) convert the disk to a virtual machine. I haven't done this is several years so I don't know if the tools are current. A variety of software claims to be able to do it.

https://www.easeus.com/todo-backup-guide/convert-physical-to-virtual.html
https://www.vmware.com/products/converter.html
https://www.veeam.com/blog/how-to-convert-physical-machine-hyper-v-virtual-machine-disk2vhd.html

Once you've converted the drive to a virtual drive image, you install a virtual machine player. VMWare Player and Virtualbox are the most common (free) ones. Microsoft Virtual PC is the other, but I don't have any experience with that one. Beware that some of players want a specific virtual disk format, so you have to be careful to pick and choose your converter and virtual machine player.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_workstation_player/14_0
https://www.virtualbox.org/
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3702

If this all works, you'll be able to "boot" the virtual disk image inside your virtual machine player, and your old desktop should show up in a window as a virtual PC. Performance will be sluggish (slightly to very depending on your hardware specs), so I unless you've got a high-end system I only recommend this for recovering your old data.

 

[gardenman]

Folder: %LocalAppData%\Packages\Microsoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalState

I haven't tried backing this up and restoring it to another system. No clue if it will work. No idea if you need all 3 files or not. You might have to experiment with it and figure it out. Good luck.

Edit: This might help: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38823336/where-sticky-notes-are-saved-in-windows-10-1607