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I cloned Windows 10 from a HDD Partiton into an SSD Partition. The SSD has 2 Partitions: one (1st) is Windows 7 (manually installed) and the other is the cloned Windows 10 from previous HDD. I created the entry in Boot Menu, transfered the Boot Menu to SSD onto Win 7 Partition. Computer boots, a Win7 styled menu appears (black menu with multiple OS choices). I can select any but Windows 10 does not procede to the User Login even if it loads, just a black screen appears and a responsive cursor with loading style. The computer experiences high CPU load. I have created a Windows 10 bootable stick. But this one does not have a Repair Menu just to install a new copy.

Edit: Converted the old style Bootmenu to the Windows 10 bootmenu which gives an option to troubleshoot Windows 10.

osiris89
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I found the workaround myself. There were the drive letters that caused the trouble. Booted the cloned Window from SSD via Troubleshooting and F6 as Safe Mode with Command Prompt. Typed CTRL + SHIFT + ESC and then observed something strange. The instance actually booted the Windows from the HDD that is in the Caddy and everything was mounted as C:. But not so did the Command Prompt where it initiated D:\windows\system32 instead of C:\windows\system32. In other words the CMD instance thought it is the cloned Windows in SSD which is active. I then entered regedit from CMD, removed all the entries in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices but left the empty (Default) Value. Removed the HDD with the Caddy which is hotswappable, rebooted the system. Selected the cloned Windows 10 from SSD and to my amazement it kicked in. The MountedDevices automatically had created a new entry with current Drive (SSD) and current active Partition being correctly C:

Caution: Messing with Registry may damage your Windows!

Image of the new entry, Initial Path and Drive Uniqueidentifier

osiris89
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  • I have a similar situation and tried your way and it didn't work but I didn't remove the old drive because I have the ESP there - do you think we must remove the old drive ? – Clyde Barrow Oct 19 '22 at 13:57
  • Hi. Wich software have you used for cloning and which clone option have you selected. Clone by sector or migrate. Is your destination disc MBR or GPT. Was enough free space when you transferred the clone. Are there any active or damaged Operating Systems on the destination disc and which OS have you cloned. And then we see further. – osiris89 Oct 20 '22 at 16:44
  • @ClydeBarrow! As far as I believe one cannot have two bootloaders synchronize as one merged bootmenu. But its possible as I know from my case, to reference a partition (an OS) of another disc. What you can try is - to disable the old disc from BIOS without physically detaching and retry the procedure. – osiris89 Oct 20 '22 at 21:33
  • I used clonezilla and it didn't work - but then I used macrium reflect, copied all windows partitions and removed the old ones and it worked - thanks for help ! – Clyde Barrow Oct 21 '22 at 05:40
  • @ClydeBarrow! Thats a solution too, great. One hint, if your new disk is larger than your previous disk, there will be unmanaged free diskspace left. You can initialize new partitions for personal data conservation or you can expand your last partition for more capacity - with diskmanagement tool (diskmgmt.msc). But be careful and do a little research beforehand. – osiris89 Oct 21 '22 at 11:49
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+1 to the answer by osiris. To add, the registry of the cloned pc has to be edited. Since Windows is not loading, we can either use safe mode as given in his answer or if the original hdd is still connected and booting, we may edit the remote registry (SDD registry) using the method in this link. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/system-management-components/remotely-edit-the-registry

Yaman Jain
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  • Welcome to SuperUser! This does not provide an answer to the original question, instead it is a comment on another answer. Please refrain from posting these as answers. Once you have enough reputation, you will be able to comment on someone else's posts directly. – DarkDiamond Oct 16 '22 at 14:08
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