The cloned OS drive isn't booting?
The cloned OS drive isn't booting?
Main SSD drive starts up properly but the cloned backup drive causes a blue screen. Error code OxcOOOOOOe appears, and the winload.efi file is missing. I regularly clone my primary drive to a backup drive for several years. Recently, after about six months, the backup would fail to boot. Both drives are GMT [GPT?]. Previous attempts with different clones, a fresh SSD, AOEMI Pro, and Maximum Macrium Reflect didn’t resolve the issue. I also used Norton 360, which detected no malware. The AOEMI backup option worked again. After installing Windows 11 on the old backup drive, it booted normally. When cloned to another drive, it still failed. I explored various Win 11 recovery methods via command prompt but still encountered the same problem. It’s worth noting that the bootrec command with /fixboot gave an access denied message. The Disk Part fix sequence also didn’t help. Since the main SSD works without issues, it seems a missing win or boot file—possibly winload.efi—is blocking migration to the clone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Unlike common beliefs, "cloning" isn't an effective backup method.
It's suitable for immediate drive changes.
For backups, Imaging is the right choice.
Let's move forward.
A reliable Clone or Image should include all components.
Please display a screenshot of your Disk Management window.
Tested the backup methods again. Identical outcome. Created a disk management snapshot but haven’t attempted to link an image yet—could use guidance. Appeared fine overall.
Captain Z. Retired USAF Retread
If secure boot is enabled, you might attempt to disable it and check if the system boots normally. If successful, you could then run sfc to attempt recovery of any missing files. It seems there could be issues with the Windows installation that appear only during drive cloning attempts. For sharing images, I usually post on https://imgur.com/.
Probably no need. I can explain what's happening and I'm surprised. The drive displays four small partitions before the C: drive. My clean Win 11 installation with no apps or files shows only two small partitions before the C: drive. So I cloned my main drive to another SSD and naturally got the blue screen again. I went into the BIOS and found a surprise—each cloned blue screen appeared three times on the boot menu, while my clean Win 11 only showed once. Now the key point. When I clicked on the first two of each cloned drive, I got the usual BS, but when I clicked on the third one, it booted up. ??????