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Clonezilla - unlike what the name suggests - doesn't really make "clones", it tries (and often - but not always - succeeds) to create a "working copy", it has internal "I know it better than you do" provisions to "adapt" the copied contents to the new disk. Not that I am familiar with latest versions, maybe this has changed and there is the possibility to make a real 1:1 copy. See: I would suggest a "pure" dd (or similar), likely this (it depends on specific OS and version) might be slower, but surely it will work. The procedure might be a little different if you are running Windows (XP or similar), what may happen is the overwriting of the Disk Signature (that instead you want to preserve/clone). Basically, the moment a NT system finds that two connected disks have the same signature, it silently changes the signature of one of the two (and which one might be "random", so you risk changing the disk signature of the "original", for newer versions some things have changed, though: To be on the safe side, you should first save (to fille) a dd-like copy of the first absolute sector (MBR) of the original disk. Then connect the new disk. Then dd directly the whole original disk to the new one. Then disconnect the original disk and re-apply to the new disk the saved MBR. On Windows, I would use Clonedisk: https://labalec.fr/erwan/?page_id=42 though nice and GUI it needs however a little bit of familiarity with the available options. Or (good ol') dd for Windows: https://reboottools.com/programs/dd-for-windows/ Otherwise, on *any* Linux the plain dd is just fine.

It is difficult to say what (stupid) provision there might be that prevents you from restoring/recovery, Usually it is not very sophisticated (i.,e. it doesn't interrogate the hard disk for make/model as that would be a problem in manufacturing assembling lines when a batch of different make/model disks is provided and of course there would be the need to re-create different Recovery Discs for different batches). So, generally speaking the check is done: 1) on Disk's Signature (on the MBR) 2) on Disk's Signature AND MBR boot code 3) on some values in the MBR partition data 4) on some other "hidden" sector or partition A test that costs little (only some time and patience) would be, since you have the original hard disk AND the recovery disc work fine on it would be to make a forensic (dd-like) clone of the old hard disk on the new hard disk (same size or bigger) and see what happens with it. I wouldn't overdo it, at least for the test, i.e. if the original hard disk is a 250 GB, one, a clone on a 250 or 320 GB disk has more chances to work than a clone on (say) a 1 TB disk.