KB or guidance to copy Windows to larger drive?

[timg11]

I thought this process was in the KBs, but I did not find it.

I have a Windows system booting off a 512G M.2 NVME drive that I want to upgrade to a 1T M.2 NVME.

I thought this was a simple process. I booted into IFL, chose Copy, and left options at default except for adding 'Scale to Target'

When the copy completed, I installed the target NVME in the system, and got the blue screen error:
"Recovery. Your PC/Device needs to be repaired. A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed. Error code 0xc0000255."

Searching on this error seems to indicate errors in the BCD. So it seems the copy did not proceed as expected.

Where did I go wrong?
Do I need a two step process where I do a Copy without scale, and then use Partition Work to re-size the NTFS data partition?

[Brian K]

Tim, was the target NVMe drive in your USB adapter when you did the copy? If so, a BCD Edit should fix the booting issue.

[TeraByte Support]

If you do a copy without changing disk signature then bring it online while the other drive is still there (or even detach/attach to usb) the signature will change on the new drive and won't be bootable until fixed up. Older windows version may bring the drive online much easier than the newer windows versions which typically leave them offline unless forced online when there is a signature collision.

You can look in the BCD Edit (https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/kb ... bootit-bm/) or just run fixboot.tbs as well.

[timg11]

Thanks! I did the Copy from IFL, so the Windows never "saw" the target drive after it was copied. After the copy, I shut down the machine, removed the source NVME, and installed the target NVME. So it may have had the same disk signature as the old drive, but Windows was never booted with both drives connected. Yet, still a boot failure.

I thought there was some combination of settings in IFL Copy that would result in an exact "clone" of a drive, including being bootable.
So it is actually the case that Copy will not result in a bootable drive, and BCDedit or fixboot.tbs are always required in when using IFL's Copy function?

@Brian K, you ask about the target being in a USB adapter - yes it was in this adapter. Does that mean that the IFL Copy function might be "confused" because the USB adapter is somehow different than the M.2 slot on the motherboard, and would therefore write the BCD in a way that would become non-bootable when the drive is later installed in the M.2 slot?

This suggests the strategy would be to boot to IFL with the source drive installed, and carefully document all the settings in BCDedit for the original drive that is currently booting. (too bad IFL doesn't have a screen capture) Then perform the IFL Copy to the target drive in the USB adapter. Then power down and install the target drive in the M.2 slot. Then boot again into IFL, perform BCD edit, and adjust to duplicate the settings that were found in the source drive.

[TeraByte Support]

No, I couldn't come up with a copy that doesn't boot.

[TeraByte Support]

I know what it may have been - you weren't using simple operations, or your drive boot partition is different than OS and you didn't use the "update boot partition" option. It's so automatic that it slipped my memory.

Was it (E)MBR or GPT type drive?

[timg11]

I am not using Simple options in IFL. The source drive is the boot drive for the system.
If I have simple options disabled, and the source drive is the boot drive (C: for Windows) do I still need the "update boot partition" option?

Is there any issue with 'Scale to Target' option? I was unsure if it was smart enough to scale only the main Windows data partition to fill the new space, and would not also try to scale up the reserved partitions that should remain unchanged.

[Brian K]

Tim, see...

Automatic Scaling Restrictions
Automatic Boot Partition Update

Was it (E)MBR or GPT type drive?

[TeraByte Support]

It's doubtful you have a single partition drive that boots, MS by default sets this up to have more than one as do the pc makers. You'd have had manually handle things. Just simple always use Update Boot Partition unless you have a reason not to, or use simple operations and let the program handle things for you.

[timg11]

No, it is not a single partition. It has 5. Recovery, EFI System Partition, Microsoft Reserved Partition, MyCDrive, and Unnamed.
I looked at the source drive in IFL.
MBR says "GPT Reserved"

• Recovery partition has No BCD Store
  EFI partition has BCD with 4 pages of data
  MyCDrive has No BCD Store
  Unnamed has No BCD Store

I performed the IFL Copy in Simple mode. I was not offered an option for "Update Boot Partition".
It appeared to do everything right, including expanding the main data partition to fill the larger space.
I installed the NVMe internally and tried booting. I got "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media".
I booted back into IFL, viewed MBR set active and selected Win7MBR (I believe Win7 means Win7 and up since there is no option for Win10+)

I restarted and got "Missing Operating System"

So I will try again tomorrow and expand options and see if I find the Update Boot Partition options.