Cloning old Windows Install

[Metalsonic20]

Hi, I recently bought an SSD for my ProBook 4530s, and I want to have my plan for re-installing my OSs checked by the community. My new SSD is 240GB. My current HDD is a 750GB drive, partitioned 3 ways: Win10, Storage (NTFS), and Mac. I plan on buying a caddy for my ProBook so that I can have both drives in at once. Then, I plan to format my SSD into 2 partitions, one larger one for Windows, and one smaller one for Mac. After doing this, would it be possible to clone my Windows install off of my HDD onto the SSD? I REALLY REALLY don't want to go through setting up Windows 7, then 10 again.
If this isn't possible, I suppose I could always install Mac on a partition on the old drive.

 

[RehabMan]

Hi, I recently bought an SSD for my ProBook 4530s, and I want to have my plan for re-installing my OSs checked by the community. My new SSD is 240GB. My current HDD is a 750GB drive, partitioned 3 ways: Win10, Storage (NTFS), and Mac. I plan on buying a caddy for my ProBook so that I can have both drives in at once. Then, I plan to format my SSD into 2 partitions, one larger one for Windows, and one smaller one for Mac. After doing this, would it be possible to clone my Windows install off of my HDD onto the SSD? I REALLY REALLY don't want to go through setting up Windows 7, then 10 again.
If this isn't possible, I suppose I could always install Mac on a partition on the old drive.

You can clone your Windows install, but you'll need te to regenerate the Windows bootloader files with BCDBOOT.EXE (usually from a Windows recovery environment).

 

[Metalsonic20]

Thanks, RehabMan!
So other than that issue, my plan is solid? Excellent.
I guess I could burn a Windows 10 USB.

 

[karog]

You can clone your Windows install, but you'll need te to regenerate the Windows bootloader files with BCDBOOT.EXE (usually from a Windows recovery environment).

I have Chimera and Yosemite running on an SSD. I also have Windows 7 on an attached HD that boots with the same Chimera. I want to migrate the Win 7 to the SSD. I created a new partition on the SSD, formatted it to NTFS and cloned the Win 7 to it. But when I try to boot it, I get the \Boot\BCD status 0xc000000e error.

Things I tried:

I booted from my Win 7 DVD and tried Repair but it complains about incompatibility. I also created a repair DVD from Win 7 and booted it but it too complains when trying to Repair.

So I booted the HD Win 7 (C: ) and did the following in a Command Prompt run as Admin

bcdboot E:\Windows /s E:

where E: is the SSD Win 7 partition. It claimed success but trying to boot it gives the same error as before. I considered leaving off the /s E: but I really do not want to mess up my Yosemite or anything else.

Or maybe I need /f ALL on the bcdboot command line?

RehabMan, can you give me any advice? Thanks.

 

[RehabMan]

I have Chimera and Yosemite running on an SSD. I also have Windows 7 on an attached HD that boots with the same Chimera. I want to migrate the Win 7 to the SSD. I created a new partition on the SSD, formatted it to NTFS and cloned the Win 7 to it. But when I try to boot it, I get the \Boot\BCD status 0xc000000e error.

Things I tried:

I booted from my Win 7 DVD and tried Repair but it complains about incompatibility. I also created a repair DVD from Win 7 and booted it but it too complains when trying to Repair.

So I booted the HD Win 7 (C: ) and did the following in a Command Prompt run as Admin

bcdboot E:\Windows /s E:

where E: is the SSD Win 7 partition. It claimed success but trying to boot it gives the same error as before. I considered leaving off the /s E: but I really do not want to mess up my Yosemite or anything else.

Or maybe I need /f ALL on the bcdboot command line?

RehabMan, can you give me any advice? Thanks.

Chimera will not boot Windows in UEFI mode. You seem to have Windows installed legacy. BCDBOOT.exe not applicable.

I see you're hijacking a thread regarding a ProBook using Clover UEFI/Windows UEFI...

Windows legacy usually has boot files on a separate partition (System Reserved), so you need to boot that partition, not the main Win7 volume.

 

[karog]

Chimera will not boot Windows in UEFI mode. You seem to have Windows installed legacy. BCDBOOT.exe not applicable.

I see you're hijacking a thread regarding a ProBook using Clover UEFI/Windows UEFI...

Windows legacy usually has boot files on a separate partition (System Reserved), so you need to boot that partition, not the main Win7 volume.

Thanks for the response. Didn't mean to hijack a thread. This one was titled Cloning old Windows Install which seemed appropriate.

The HD Win 7 was from the main drive in another Hackintosh that died. I built this new one with SSD, installed Yosemite, and added the HD. Chimera found the Windows partition on the HD and it was bootable. Some drivers had to update. There is no special System Reserved partition on that HD, just that Hackintosh's EFI, a Snow Leopard partition, and the Windows partition.

Also, the doc for bcdboot shows the /f switch with values UEFI, BIOS, and ALL and requires the /s switch for the system partition. /f BIOS writes the boot-env files to the \Boot dir which is where I also see them on the HD Win 7. I did not use the /f but I checked for the \Boot dir on the SSD Win 7 partition and it is there with contents including the BCD and BCD.LOG files with current timestamp.

So I still don't really know what to do.

 

[RehabMan]

...
The HD Win 7 was from the main drive in another Hackintosh that died.

In that case, best to re-install Windows. Moving a Windows install from one computer to another won't go well unless the two computers are identical.

 

[karog]

In that case, best to re-install Windows. Moving a Windows install from one computer to another won't go well unless the two computers are identical.

I was surprised that the HD Win 7 worked on the new machine since all the hardware changed but it did and has for months.

Now the clone is the same machine, just from the HD to the SSD.

 

[RehabMan]

I was surprised that the HD Win 7 worked on the new machine since all the hardware changed but it did and has for months.

Now the clone is the same machine, just from the HD to the SSD.

You need to fix the BCD file. The BCD file identifies partitions by GUID. When you clone, the partitions are assigned new GUIDs.

You can use BCDEDIT to edit the BCD file.