unable to boot from cloned disk

[miscoper]

Hello there,

I have to update several HP Z640 from Windows 7 Pro to Win 10 LTSB 2016. (which is not the issue here). These computers control machines. Because many things might go wrong, I wanted to clone the system disk (~256 Gbyte) to another SSD, so that I can easily go back by swapping the SSD. (And then perform the update on the cloned disk).

But I can't boot from the cloned disk. The windows 7 logo appears (so apparently the disk and boot partition are recognized) but shortly after the logo, a blue screen of death appears for a sub-second before going into reboot. Then Windows recovery  comes up. But it cannot fix the problem, so this is an infinity loop.

I would appreciate any ideas how I could get to a working cloned system disk.

More details:

I have tried the following SSDs for cloning targets: SanDisk SSD PLUS 480 GB. Samsung V-NAND SSD 860 EVO 4TB. both don't work.

For the cloning I first made a backup with Acronis 2016 and I then restored this to the target disk. When this didn't work, I tried to make the clone with Macrium Reflect Free. Same result.

I tested in on two systems, both have the same problem.

On one, I updated the BIOS from 1.58 to 2.5 (latest version), didn't help.

The windows recovery, in the log said, "Problem Signature 07" BadDriver.

Also interesting: If I am booting any WinPE system, no disks are recognized, rendering all my usual tools useless.

I filmed the BSOD, so that I could read it: blabla (check for viruses etc). Technical information: Stop: 0x0000007B. (although I am not sure about the B. It looks like a capital B but much smaller than the 7.

From googling this error code and the said error message, I assume that Windows 7 needs some kind of driver to work with the disk on which it is. But how could I fix this problem?

[DGroves]

not specifying which cloning software, and how it was used is a great way to get no help!! both Have numerous cloning modes

 do Advanced Boot Options ?
"repair your computer" option works? Don't select "startup repair" afterwards but "command prompt". In command prompt type

diskpart
select disk 0
list part
list  vol
exit

next please look at the windows 7 log files, they should give you a starting point

• Open Notepad by going to Start | All Programs | Accessories | Notepad or opening the Run dialog, typing notepad.exe, and clicking OK.
• Navigate to C:\Windows\ and open the file ntbtlog.txt.
• Pour through the boot log to troubleshoot whatever issue you are having. You can also see what service pack the machine has installed from this log.

1. Open the registry by typing regedit at the run dialog.
2. Navigate to HKEY_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Sharedtools/MSconfig.
3. Look in the StartupFolder and StartupReg folders to see what is loading

or, simply install a new ssd/HD drive and install windows 10 and then your required applications

[miscoper]

Thanks for replying, DGroves.

Sorry for being not clear enough about the cloning. With Acronis booted from USB stick, I made a normal backup of the complete disk, shut down the system, swapped the disks and then restored it to the new disk. This works when the restore goes to the same (original) disk in the Z640, as I found out at another occasion. But when going to the new disk I get the Blue Screen. With the other software I went with 'standard parameters' for cloning directly from disk to disk (both plugged in via USB adapters to another computer) I would have to do it again to be sure what the parameters were.

I wasn't able to get anywhere with F8 during boot. But possibly the window of opportunity was too short. However, after the unsuccessful repair run I have the option to open a command prompt. list part shows three partitions, 199 MB system, 128 MB Reserved and 238 GB Primary. That looks like on the source drive (including the offsets).

List vol shows (among data disks and DVD)

Volume 1   C   OS   NTFS 238 GB Healthy

Volume 2                 Fat32 100 MB Healthy

All other volumes have drive letters.

The ntbtlog.txt files has a date from last April. So I am not sure it will help to find current problems.  It goes over several pages, some "Did not load drive" lines popping up more than once. But I did not see anything I was able to connect to boot problems. Windows 7 is current as of last week, all service packs and updates installed.

In the registry, under HKEY_Local_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Sharedtools/ there is only Msinfo and Stationery, but no MSconfig.

The whole purpose of the cloning was to keep the old hard disk as is and to run an in-place Windows10 update on the cloned one. So that if parts of the machines that are controlled by this box should turn out to cause problems under Windows 10, I have a quick way of going back and forth by simply swapping disks until the problems are solved. A new installation causes a lot of extra work, since all the users and their settings would have to be reinstalled. And I have three of those boxes to update (to of them have this Blue Screen problem, the third not tested yet).

[DGroves]

Hmmmm,.....partitions info you gave is normal (no HP factory recovery partition)

i would try booting into safe mode and run the clone application if it allows that,

(you may have to create a bootable usb key for this)

is the clone disk the same size or only a bit larger? if it's significantly larger look at your clone settings and select "EXACT" clone options IE_-the clone of a 20gig drive to a 30gig drive will only create a 20gig partition on the clone instead of creating a 30 gig

[miscoper]

Well, the Acronis Backup was made with booting from USB stick, and that didn't solve the issue. The target disk is larger (480 vs 256), but after the cloning the partitions are not. There is simply a lot of unused space left. I planed to take care of it afterwards, within Windows.

[miscoper]

Still not sure what the reason was, but it seems to be related to Windows 7. At least I did not have trouble to boot from a cloned disk on another Z640 with Windows 10.

[joselso]

Acronis is very good for backing up data.

However, for cloning Windows 7 operating system disk (or SSD), I use the built-in 'System Backup' in Windows 7, and create an image on an external backup disk, as well as create a bootable CD = System Repair Disc. See all details in:

https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4241/how-to-create-a-system-image-in-windows-7/

Then you can use the bootable CD to clone the image onto a new, empty drive (HDD or SSD) and then boot from the new drive. See details "How to Restore Your Backup with a Recovery Drive" in;

https://www.howtogeek.com/239312/how-to-restore-system-image-backups-on-windows-7-8-and-10/