Solved Complete OS on two disks. If I remove one disk, will PC boot into other?

@Winuser

I think we may be comparing oranges and apples. When you make an image of all partitions on a disk, your intention (most common use) is to restore that image to the disk it was made from. That disk already has some characteristics that are not in the contents of the partitions. If the disk you imaged is bootable, and you restore the image to that bootable disk, the newly restored disk will be bootable.

You were right on it in #9 above, when you suggested I do a new install of Windows to the NVMe, then restore from an image made previously. That would make the C: partition bootable on the NVMe, and a restore would leave it still bootable.

But in this thread, we were dealing with a brand new, empty NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD. When I took an image of all the partitions of my bootable main disk, which contained my OS and programs, and "restored" that image to the new disk, the resulting disk was not bootable, and we tried a number of approaches to add bootability to it. None of them worked. It contained all of the files and all of the partitions of the original bootable disk, all verified, but I couldn't boot from it.

I talked with someone on one of the Macrium forums about this situation, and they suggested that with a new, empty disk, the right approach is to CLONE the main disk to the new disk. That process creates an exact copy of the main disk, and that consists of more than the contents of the partitions: it copies the characteristics of each of the partitions as well.

When I restored a complete image of my bootable main disk to the new disk, the new disk was not bootable. When I cloned my bootable main disk to the new disk, the new disk became bootable.

The logic of this is that while an image, restored to the bootable disk it was made from will always be bootable, that same image, "restored" to a new disk will not be bootable, because the restoring process doesn't add any features to the partitions that they don't already have on the new disk. Restoring to an already bootable disk will produce a still bootable disk. Restoring to a non-bootable disk will not.

Wisewiz said:

@Winuser

I think we may be comparing oranges and apples. When you make an image of all partitions on a disk, your intention (most common use) is to restore that image to the disk it was made from. That disk already has some characteristics that are not in the contents of the partitions.

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We are not comparing oranges and apples. I don't no where you get the idea that the image can only be used on the drive that the image was made from. I have used my images to restore a drive that the image was made from, I have used my images on new drives and I have used my images to move my OS to a new computer that came with Windows pre-installed. As I said, my system images have always worked without having to do anything extra.

Wisewiz said:

But in this thread, we were dealing with a brand new, empty NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD. When I took an image of all the partitions of my bootable main disk, which contained my OS and programs, and "restored" that image to the new disk, the resulting disk was not bootable, and we tried a number of approaches to add bootability to it. None of them worked. It contained all of the files and all of the partitions of the original bootable disk, all verified, but I couldn't boot from it.

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Of course it wouldn't boot. The image didn't contain the neccessary driver for the NVME drive. The clean install did.

Well, the only thing wrong with the idea that "the image didn't contain the necessary driver" is that your claim is that the image transfers everything on the source to the target and if the source is bootable, the target should be. When you look at the image I posted in #3 above, you'll see the BOOT marker on drive C: on the source, but drive I: on the target is a restored image copy of C:, and it has no BOOT marker at all. But when I CLONED C: to I:, it changed the letter for the I: drive to C:, gave the old C: a new letter, and the new C: had the BOOT marker now.

Before I went very far into this exercise, I checked the NVMe drivers in Device Manager and at the Lenovo site, and both confirmed that the drivers were there and up-to-date.

I continue to be grateful for your interest in this and your help to me. If I had taken your advice about a new install and a restore of the old main disk image to the new install, I'd have been finished sooner (but I would not have discovered the difference between image-restoring and cloning on a brand new disk).

Think of it this way: "Restoring" an image to another disk/drive than the source makes a copy of the source on the target and leaves the source alone. Cloning, OTOH, if the source is a boot drive/disk with a boot drive on it, creates a new "source" and changes the original source dramatically. In my case, I: (on the target) became C:, and C: and D: (on the source) became other letters entirely.

Wisewiz said:

Well, the only thing wrong with the idea that "the image didn't contain the necessary driver" is that your claim is that the image transfers everything on the source to the target and if the source is bootable, the target should be. When you look at the image I posted in #3 above, you'll see the BOOT marker on drive C: on the source, but drive I: on the target is a restored image copy of C:, and it has no BOOT marker at all. But when I CLONED C: to I:, it changed the letter for the I: drive to C:, gave the old C: a new letter, and the new C: had the BOOT marker now.

Before I went very far into this exercise, I checked the NVMe drivers in Device Manager and at the Lenovo site, and both confirmed that the drivers were there and up-to-date.

I continue to be grateful for your interest in this and your help to me. If I had taken your advice about a new install and a restore of the old main disk image to the new install, I'd have been finished sooner (but I would not have discovered the difference between image-restoring and cloning on a brand new disk).

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Was the NVME driver running on the SSD before you made the clone/image? I seriously doubt it. Being in a folder that MS uses to store drivers is not the same as it being loaded and running at startup. My head is starting to hurt so go ahead and think what you want.

Sorry. I promise to give you no more headaches.

Wisewiz said:

Sorry. I promise to give you no more headaches.

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Excedrin headache #11.

Wisewiz said:

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Did Canada get the old Excedrin comercials that use to give numbers for the type of headaches?

We did, indeed. Unfortunately, I've forgotten the numbers that go with my various headaches.

Either way should work. "Cloning" is often preferred because it avoids the intermediate step of creating and then restoring from an image.

SIW2 said:

Either way should work

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I agree but for whatever reason there are times that one will work and the other won't.

@Winuser and @SIW2

I agree with you both. I'd really like to see this thread (mine, originally) take a long nap. I've caught Winuser's Excedrin headache.

Wisewiz said:

@Winuser and @SIW2

I agree with you both. I'd really like to see this thread (mine, originally) take a long nap. I've caught Winuser's Excedrin headache.

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Truth be known. My headache was because of my sinustis.

Well, it's a relief to learn that I wasn't the sole cause of your misery.