Hey everyone! I recently cloned my C drive to a new SSD, hoping to replace the old drive. But when I unplugged the original C drive and plugged in the new one, it didn't show up in the boot menu at all. When I connected both drives, Windows got stuck in a cycle of performing disk checks and then bluescreening. I'm looking for a fix without needing a USB with Windows media since I don't have another computer to work with. Just for an update, when I disconnected the new drive, the system booted up normally again.
4 Answers
Quick question: Did you clone the drive properly, or did you just copy the files directly over? It's crucial to use proper cloning software to ensure the drive can boot independently. If it was just a file copy, that could be a big part of the problem.
First things first, disconnect the new drive and check if your original drive still works fine. It’s important not to connect both drives when trying to boot from the new one. If your old drive works, try cloning the drive again. Make sure to power down the system, disconnect the old drive, and check if the new one can boot on its own. Also, ensure that the storage controller for the new drive is set to AHCI mode in your BIOS settings. If you’re still having trouble, you might need to repair or recreate the Boot Configuration Data (BCD).
If you're getting blue screens, you might want to look for 'dump files'—these are crash logs that can help diagnose BSOD issues. Try to boot into Windows normally or through Safe Mode. If you can access it, check for dump files in C:WindowsMinidump. If you find any, zip the folder and upload it to a file-sharing service. It’s best to have multiple dump files for analysis, so if you only find one, follow a guide online to set up Small Memory Dumps, which can help prevent losing older logs.
Looks like the BSOD error code you're getting is related to 'ntfs.sys'. That could indicate a file system issue. Have you tried running a disk check? Sometimes, booting into recovery mode and running 'chkdsk' can fix underlying problems associated with the drives.
I just saw that it also mentioned performing an automatic repair before going to a black screen.
I tried doing that initially, but the new drive still wouldn’t appear in the boot menu.