Cloning Windows 2008 onto a new disk

[j7n]

I've cloned my system disk to a larger drive. The new drive won't boot. Apparently I need to convince the OS that the drive partitions are the same. The cloned volumes are exact same size with same serial numbers. I recall I need to go into the registry and edit DosDevices.

What complicates the setup is that I have Windows 2008 R2 with its new complicated BCD bootloader. I'm posting here because the problem is mainly with NT6 that I know little about. I can only edit the BCD while having booted into Windows 7 (not from a boot CD) with BOOTICE, and it refers to different drive letters of the current system. I do not want to edit the present system with Microsoft tools, but the cloned one. The new disk is currently connected to a secondary SATA controller. I don't know if it matters to how the BCD sees it.

• Partition 0 4GB: BCD boot loader, Windows 2003 SP2; C: for NT5, B: for NT6

• Partition 1 24GB: Windows 2008 R2; C: for NT6, B: for NT5

Neither of these would boot with a message from the BCD boot loader. The NT5 is never loaded.

What steps do I need to perform to complete the clone?

[D.Draker]

Looks like I'm the only one who answers to your questions, lol.

Well, I always used WinHex under tools/disk tools/clone disk and had zero troubles with NT6.0.

But I'm old and I use old software. My version is from 2004-05 or so.

What tools do you use ?

[j7n]

I cloned with WinHex by selecting sectors from 0 to the end of the second partition. But it's a simple direct copy, so other tools could do the same. Having the OS partitions of minimal size makes this part easy.

I want to replace a 128GB SSD with 512GB to have more space for programs and games, but now got demotivated.

[D.Draker]

12 hours ago, j7n said:

but now got demotivated

I'm very sorry to hear it.

[D.Draker]

On 11/23/2022 at 4:41 PM, j7n said:

Partition 1 24GB: Windows 2008 R2; C: for NT6, B: for NT5

It's server based on Win7, I never cloned win 7 , sorry. And Vista/Server 2008 should have BOOTSECT.BAK on C.

[j7n]

It was simpler than I expected. There is a 32-bit identifier at 01B8h in sector 0. After the new disk was mounted by Windows for creating the third partition, a new ID was generated for it. The solution was to write the old ID there and reboot without making more changes to the disk. To make the edit to the boot sector persist, I used Bootice.

I was also mistaken about BCD editing not working outside Windows 7. I confused it with UEFI. It does work, but was not needed.

All drive letters remain the same.

[D.Draker]

On 11/25/2022 at 2:31 AM, j7n said:

It was simpler than I expected.

Solution found, good ! And I was gonna suggest you to rebuild the BCD. Helped me some time ago. Just in case, let it be here.

1. Boot your computer from the Windows system repair disc and then bring up a command prompt as you do in the second method.

2. Then you can type the following commands to rebuild the master boot record (MBR), partition bootsectors, and boot configuration data (BCD) to the startup issue.

bootrec /fixmbr

bootrec /fixboot

bootrec /rebuildbcd

[jaclaz]

On 11/25/2022 at 3:31 AM, j7n said:

It was simpler than I expected. There is a 32-bit identifier at 01B8h in sector 0. After the new disk was mounted by Windows for creating the third partition, a new ID was generated for it. The solution was to write the old ID there and reboot without making more changes to the disk. To make the edit to the boot sector persist, I used Bootice.

I was also mistaken about BCD editing not working outside Windows 7. I confused it with UEFI. It does work, but was not needed.

All drive letters remain the same.

That is the Disk Signature in the MBR:

In more recent windows a signature collision is detected and the user is warned (and usually the second disk is taken "offline"), on older systems it is changed automatically and silently to a new value, as you cannot have two disks mounted at the same time with the same disk signature, when you remove the original disk, the new disk is not anymore a "clone".

Commercial tools to "move/upgrade" systems to new disks have mechanism to avoid this collision, but since you did a straight direct copy the disk signature was duplicated.

@D.Draker

JFYI, the bootrec /fixmbr will only check and correct the MBR boot code, it won't change or set the Disk Signature, which was needed in this case.

jaclaz

[D.Draker]

3 hours ago, jaclaz said:

1 - Commercial tools to "move/upgrade" systems to new disks have mechanism to avoid this collision, but since you did a straight direct copy the disk signature was duplicated.

@D.Draker

JFYI, the bootrec /fixmbr will only check and correct the MBR boot code, it won't change or set the Disk Signature, which was needed in this case.

jaclaz

1 - Thist is why my first suggestion was to use WinHex, since it does it without troubles and any unnecessary user interactions.

2 - Thank you jaclaz, you know - I always apreciate your wisdom.

[jaclaz]

Does WinHex have such a feature?

I was thinking of dedicated tools like Acronis. Macrium or similar, WinHex (at least the very old version I used many years ago) is AFAIK a generic (and very good AFAIK) hex/disk editor with some advanced features, didn't thought it had this provision automated, but in any case it would have not worked in j7n's case, since he had the two disks mounted at the same time (to create the third partition).

On older systems you needed a copy of the MBR (or of just the disk signature) and replace it on the (modified) clone through another system (or via DOS or grub4dos, linux bootdisk etc.), on newer systems the clone is - I believe - put offline to safeguard the disk Signature, but if you put it back online on the same system the collision will happen again.

jaclaz

[D.Draker]

4 hours ago, jaclaz said:

Does WinHex have such a feature?

I was thinking of dedicated tools like Acronis. Macrium or similar, WinHex (at least the very old version I used many years ago) is AFAIK a generic (and very good AFAIK) hex/disk editor with some advanced features, didn't thought it had this provision automated, but in any case it would have not worked in j7n's case, since he had the two disks mounted at the same time (to create the third partition).

On older systems you needed a copy of the MBR (or of just the disk signature) and replace it on the (modified) clone through another system (or via DOS or grub4dos, linux bootdisk etc.), on newer systems the clone is - I believe - put offline to safeguard the disk Signature, but if you put it back online on the same system the collision will happen again.

jaclaz

I wouldn't trust russian (acronis) software to clone my disc. Besides, they weren't even in business, they are relatively new.

Macrium are also just too new. 2007 or even younger . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrium_Reflect

WinHex - yes, it has that feature for a long-long time.

[jaclaz]

No, that is not what I meant.

Of course WinHex can copy (clone) disks or make images of them.

The point is about having two exact copies (clones) disks connected at the same time to a same Windows NT based OS.

Up to a certain Windows version (I think Vista or 7, but I may well be wrong), when this happened the Windows OS would silently and automatically change the disk signature of  the second mounted copy.

From what I read here and there more recent Windows (possibly from 8 onwards, but as above I may be well wrong) the collision is detected and the second disk is put offline to prevent this change.

As well from what I read here and there some specialized "cloning tools" have special provisions to  change (in the few places where it is hardcoded, namely the Registry DosDevices and the BCD on Vista and later) settings to reflect the newly changed disk signature.

Such a clone won't be an actual clone anymore but will boot and work like the original, and can even co-exist with the original still connected as they will have different disk signatures.

jaclaz

 

 

[D.Draker]

20 hours ago, jaclaz said:

In more recent windows a signature collision is detected and the user is warned (and usually the second disk is taken "offline"), on older systems it is changed automatically and silently to a new value, as you cannot have two disks mounted at the same time with the same disk signature, when you remove the original disk, the new disk is not anymore a "clone".

Yes, you're absolutely right ! That's why I remove the original disk from the system before I boot from the cloned one.

I'm pretty sure it was always done like this, no ?

14 hours ago, jaclaz said:

The point is about having two exact copies (clones) disks connected at the same time to a same Windows NT based OS.

He didn't write he wanted them "at the same time". He wrote "I've cloned my system disk ... The new drive won't boot."

By his description of the situation, one might assume he removed the old disk. 

14 hours ago, jaclaz said:

As well from what I read here and there some specialized "cloning tools" have special provisions to  change (in the few places where it is hardcoded, namely the Registry DosDevices and the BCD on Vista and later) settings to reflect the newly changed disk signature.

Technically it wouldn't be cloning, especially as if in forensics, like with WinHex. The original question was about cloning.

[jaclaz]

Yes, the way "cloning" is used varies a lot, it is a years long debate on how cloning is often used - if not improperly - at least  not strictly enough (IMHO), JFYI .

https://msfn.org/board/topic/157634-hard-disk-cloningimaging-from-inside-windows/

jaclaz

 

 

[D.Draker]

On 11/27/2022 at 9:54 AM, jaclaz said:

Yes, the way "cloning" is used varies a lot, it is a years long debate on how cloning is often used - if not improperly - at least  not strictly enough (IMHO), JFYI .

https://msfn.org/board/topic/157634-hard-disk-cloningimaging-from-inside-windows/

jaclaz

Yes, they use it improperly.

 

On 11/26/2022 at 4:04 PM, jaclaz said:

Does WinHex have such a feature?

WinHex can do both ways, it can Clone and image drives.

Source:

"WinHex: A powerful data recovery and forensics tool, by michaeljackman in Microsoft "

May 6, 2003, (notice the article is 20 years old) 

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/winhex-a-powerful-data-recovery-and-forensics-tool/

Scroll to 

> Clone and image drives.

> Recover data.