[tileman]

Hey, need to be able to clone a smaller source drive into a larger target with the partition expanding to its maximum minus the windows hidden partition. Currently hdclone 7.0.2, the larger partition worked on automatic however the target drive will not boot. It gives me a windows cannot find a file error and terminates the loading process. Is there an option im not selecting in automatic mode or do I need to change something in the bios other than making the target drive the primary boot drive? I have taken out all the other drives to keep the confusion to a minimum and only put the target drive in the system this is for latest windows 10 version.

[Adrian Decker]

Hello tileman,

First I would like to ask you download and use the new Free Edition version 8.0.7. The download link can be found under the following address:
https://www.miray-software.com/download/hdclone.html

And in order to exclude file system problems I would like to ask you to check all source partitions it with the Windows command line tool CheckDisk (chkdsk). In order to run CheckDisk it is necessary to open a Windows command line as administrator. For that search for "cmd" in the Windows Start menu, right click on the result and run it as administrator. With the command "chkdsk c:" you would diagnose your C: drive. Therefore it is necessary to also replace the letter 'c' with the drive letters of all partitions on the source disk.

With the Windows Disk Management you can find out which drive letter belongs to the source disk. The Disk management is in the Windows Computer Management, which is accessible via the right click on (My) Computer. And from Windows 8.1 on it can also be accessed via right click on the Windows logo at the bottom left.

Sincerely,
Adrian Decker

[tileman]

Well using chkdsk reported nothing unusual. Start first DOES YOUR SOFTWARE CLONE OS'S? I have not been able to get anyone from your company to answer this question with a yes or a no? If yes for windows 10 what is the procedure? Your online and offline documentation says nothing about migrating an OS or the procedure so Im beginning to believe this software does not copy a boot drive and make a clone that's bootable. Since nobody else is responding this seems probable. If you would just answer my question this would save a lot of time.

[Adrian Decker]

Hello tileman,

Yes, HDClone clones operating systems as well. Currently officially supported are Windows XP-10 and Windows Server 2003-2016. This can be confirmed by all of our support staff.

For cloning an operating system or creating and restoring an image/backup of it, it is necessary to copy the entire storage device at once (e.g. with the copy mode "Disk"). That includes all small operating-system system-partitions, even those without a drive letter (Recovery, EFI System, Microsoft Reserved, etc.). Otherwise the required partitioning and boot information won't be part of the copy which then usually is not able to boot. Only pure data partition may be deselected for the copy from the Standard Edition on.

At the following address is a short tutorial about how to restore an image/backup, which basically also applies to creating a clone. The difference is, that for a clone it is necessary to select an entire storage device as source instead of an image:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ElGLftIiWs&t=142s

For the target partition adjustment I recommend to fix the size of all small operating-system system-partitions (Recovery, EFI System, Microsoft Reserved, OEM, etc.) by changing the small change arrow symbol to the lock symbol. Then adjust the remaining partitions manually or proportionally with the check box "Resize partitions proportionally". Finally click the <Continue> button to apply the values. The partition adjustments can be performed at the "Adjust partitions" pop-up window which appears before the copying process starts. You can find more information about the partition adjustment in the HDClone Inline help (F1) under the following path:
"/Controls/Guidance Pages/"

After the clone shut down your system, exchange the source with the target and start your system again. To be safe also select the target or its Windows Bootmanager as boot device via the BIOS/UEFI boot menu, in case the BIOS/UEFI doesn't select it automatically.

Sincerely,
Adrian Decker