Cloned Hard Drive Won't Boot? Make Cloned Drive Bootable in 3 Fixes

This page explains why your cloned hard drive or SSD won't boot and offers practical fixes to help you make cloned drive bootable on Windows 10/8/7, etc., with ease.

These methods also work to fix cloned drive won't boot on Windows 10, cloned SSD won't boot, cloned m.2 SSD won't boot, Samsung SSD clone does not boot, Windows 7 won't boot after cloning hard drive, etc., issues. Follow to check out the reasons and get rid of this issue from your PC with ease.

Cloned Hard Drive Won't Boot, How to Make It Bootable?

"I cloned my 250GB disk to a Seagate 520GB hard drive, thinking that upgrade to a disk with larger storage capacity, then my Windows 10 laptop will be more responsive. The clone was successful and I could see all my files on the cloned hard drive when it finished. But when I insert the disk into my laptop, Windows won't boot from it. I cannot figure out why cloned hard drive won't boot and how to make cloned drive bootable. Is there anyone who can help?"

The cloned hard drive won't boot issue is a common problem that has troubled numerous users. In this case, how to make cloned drive bootable becomes a hot topic. To fix the issue, you should first find the possible reasons that might cause the error.

Here is a list of causes that stop or make your cloned hard drive or SSD form booting up:

1. Source disk contains bad sectors, which makes cloned disk unbootable.

2. An incomplete clone (only cloned the system drive, the boot drive is not cloned).

3. Disk partition style conflict, e.g. source disk - MBR, target disk - GPT.

4. Fail to change the boot drive in BIOS, the system still boots from the old boot drive.

5. The computer motherboard doesn't support UEFI boot with the cloned GPT disk.

6. The computer lacks the necessary drivers to boot up the cloned SSD, such as M.2.

It's doesn't matter if you don't know which reason causes your cloned disk unbootable. Try the following provided solutions and you will make the cloned disk boot again on your PC.

Preparations

Before you start, here are some preparation tips for you to follow:

#1. Prepare a new equal or bigger disk

If your new disk is smaller than the used space on the source disk, the cloning may not complete or only partial data will be cloned to the new disk.

In order to create a comprehensive disk cloning process, make sure your new disk is the same big as or even bigger than the source disk.

#2. Pick up a reliable disk cloning software

The most important thing to clone hard drive to new HDD or SSD without bootable issue is to pick up a comprehensive disk cloning software for help.

Here, Qiling Disk Copy is recommended with its advanced and flexible cloning feature with 7* 24 tech support. It can help you cloned hard drive and make cloned drive bootable on all Windows OS.

Free Download

When you are ready, follow the methods below to resolve the "cloned disk not bootable" issue on your own.

Note: The former the fixes are, the more efficient it will be in fixing the error of "cloned disk won't boot".

Method 1. Restart Disk Cloning, Making Cloned Disk Bootable

Applies to: Fix cloned disk won't boot issue due to existing bad sectors on disk or incomplete disk clone.

When the source disk contains bad sectors or the cloning program executed an incomplete clone (only cloned the system drive, while the boot drive is not cloned), you will not be able to run Windows from the cloned disk.

The best way to resolve this issue is to restart the cloning process with a reliable disk cloning software. Qiling disk cloning software - Disk Copy offers a direct resolution to help you effectively clone a disk to another SSD or HDD with ease.

To guarantee a smooth disk cloning process, please activate this software first. Simply click the button here to gain an activation key immediately:

#1. Restart Cloning Disk to New Disk

First, you need to clean up the disk, leaving the whole disk empty. Then connect or insert your new hard drive or SSD to the source PC as a second drive and follow these steps:

Step 1: Download, install and run Qiling Disk Copy on your PC, click "Disk/Partition clone" to start cloning.

Step 2. Select the source disk that you want to copy or clone and click "Next".

Step 3. Select the destination disk.

Note: The destination disk should be at least the same big or even larger than the source disk if you want to copy or clone the source hard disk.

Step 4. Check and edit the disk layout.

If your destination disk is an SSD drive, do remember to tick "Optimize for SSD" option if the target is SSD.

Step 5: Click "Proceed" to start the hard drive cloning process.

A message now appears, warning you that data will be lost. Please confirm this message by clicking "OK".

#2. Make Cloned Disk Bootable

When the cloning process completes, remember to change the boot sequence, setting the computer to boot from the newly cloned disk:

Step 1. Keep the new disk inserted on your PC.

Step 2. Restart your PC and simultaneously press F2, F12 or Del key to enter BIOS.

Step 3. Go to the Boot section, change the boot priority, and set computer to boot from the new cloned disk.

Step 4. Save the changes and exit BIOS. Then restart the PC.

After this, your computer will automatically boot up from the new disk.

Method 2. Convert Disk to MBR/GPT and Restart Cloning Disk

Applies to: Resolve cloned hard drive won't boot issue due to MBR and GPT conflict.

When your source disk is an MBR disk, the computer only supports BIOS Legacy boot mode, but your new disk is a GPT disk, the cloned hard drive won't boot. The reason is that GPT disk requires UEFI boot mode, but the computer doesn't support this boot mode.

Also, if the source system disk is with GPT, but the target disk is with MBR, you also cannot make the cloned disk bootable.

The best solution towards these two cases is to convert the target disk to MBR or GPT, keeping the new disk share with the same partition style as the source disk - MBR of GPT.

Here is how to start:

#1. Check The Partition Style of Both Source and Target Disks

Step 1. Insert the new disk into your computer as the second drive via a SATA cable and a power cable.

Step 2. Open Disk Management, right-click on the source disk, and select "Properties".

Step 3. Check the partition style of the selected disk.

Step 4. Repeat Step 2 and Step 3 to check the partition style of your new disk.

#2. Convert the New Disk to MBR or GPT

If your source disk is with MBR but the new disk is with GPT, you'll need to convert the GPT disk to MBR.

If the source disk is with GPT but the target is with MBR, convert the MBR to GPT.

Here, you can try Qiling Partition Master Free Edition which allows you to flexibly convert a disk to MBR or GPT. The following is a process of converting MBR to GPT:

Step 1. Download and launch Qiling Partition Master on your Windows computer.

Step 2. Click the MBR disk that you want to convert, click "More" and choose "MBR -> GPT".

If you need to convert GPT to MBR, repeat the process as listed above, right-click the new disk and select "Convert to MBR" as the conversion mode.

#3. Empty the New Disk

Now you need to delete everything, including the partitions, from the target new disk. If you need a quick guide, you can apply Qiling Partition Master with its Delete All Partition feature for help.

Make sure that the whole disk is empty, displaying unallocated in Disk Management as shown below:

#4. Repeat the Disk Cloning Process, Making It Bootable

Now you can repeat the disk cloning process by referring to Method 1 and applying reliable Qiling Disk Copy for help.

Method 3. Run DISM Install Drivers, Making Cloned Drive Boot

Applies to: Resolve cloned hard drive not booting issue due to disk driver issue on source computer.

When you cloned disk to a special new disk, such as to clone HDD to M.2 SSD, and your computer doesn't contain an M.2 SSD driver, the cloned disk won't be able to boot.

Step 1. Insert and connect the cloned disk correctly to your computer.

Step 2. Open Device Manager, expand IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, right-click the listed controller and select "Properties".

Step 3. Check the controller type of your device and then download a disk driver for your cloned disk.

Step 4. Save the downloaded driver to a secure location on your device and remember its location.

Step 5. Search cmd and right-click to open it, select "Run CMD as Administrator" on your computer.

Step 6. Type the following command and hit Enter:

Dism /Image:E: /Add-Driver /Driver:"Y:\Z.inf"

Replace E: with the drive letter of your Windows boot partition.

Replace Y: with the location of your downloaded disk drive.

Step 7. When the process finishes, exit Command Prompt.

After this, you can restart PC, setting the computer to boot from your newly cloned disk. Wait patiently, the Windows OS will boot up and run on the new disk by then.

Tips: Avoid Cloned Hard Drive Won't Boot Issue

To save your time and avoid cloned hard drive won't boot issue occurring again, we have collected some useful tips. You can follow and learn how to make cloned drive bootable in Windows 10/8/7 after analyzing the causes of all this issue.

These tips can be applied to clone disk and transfer OS to new drive on Windows 10/8/7:

1. Finding a reliable disk clone software. (Pick up Qiling Disk Copy as your first choice.)

2. Make sure both of the source disk and the destination disk are the same MBR disk or GPT disk. If not, convert MBR to GPT disk or vise verse.

3. Make sure your computer support UEFI boot mode if the clone hard drive is GPT partitioned.

4. Make sure you have cloned the system reserved partition besides the system partition (C: drive).

5. Make sure you have set the clone hard drive as the first boot drive.

6. Check if your clone uses an MBR system partition. If this is true, you must enable CSM in your BIOS which allows you to boot from both UEFI and Legacy OPROM devices.

7. Put out to source disk and replace it with the cloned disk.

Conclusion

On this page, we covered the reasons why you were unable to boot a cloned disk and offered three practical methods to help you resolve the "cloned hard drive won't boot issue".

As for beginners, we would like to recommend you try Method 1, re-doing the disk cloning process using reliable disk cloning software such as Qiling Disk Copy.

Free Download

If it's the disk partition style conflict that stops you from booting computers such as Windows 10 from the cloned drive, please follow Method 2 to convert target disk to MBR or GPT first. Then you can revert to Method 1 and repeat the disk cloning process, setting up Windows to boot from the new disk.