Cloning C: to mSATA - "Set active"?

Britton30 said:

The "cloned partition on another disk" will be the mSATA you cloned too, so yes it does need to be active. This shouldn't affect the original drive.
Be sure the system is capable of booting from the mSATA slot, not all can and are used for drive caching only.

Didn't see you there, Britton. I am sure that the system will boot from mSATA, I just have to go into BIOS after cloning is complete and set it there.

Yippee! Thank you. I will report back.

Hmm. I think the drive has cloned OK but I'm having trouble getting the system to boot from it.

In the BIOS the mSATA is listed under Main (as it was before, after I'd initialised and formatted it).

It is not listed under Boot, so...

Under SATA Support I changed "Last boot HDD only" to "All SATA devices"... (just in case, thinking I can always change it back), then saved and rebooted, nothing different.

Under Exit, Boot Override is set to the 'old' 1TB 5400rpm, and I'm sure that's what I'm booting from because it's so slow. I can't see how to change Boot Override, there is no other option.

The BIOS is Prema Mod 1.3.03 (number from my memory).

In all the reading I've done I seem to remember something about BCD, which I haven't used - should I have?

Thanks again, all.

Hmmm....I know nothing about mSATA, but am wondering what a screenshot of Windows Disk Management looks like?

Windows on an A drive. I dunno. Maybe that's kosher with an mSATA setup, maybe not?

Can you still boot from the old C drive?

Yes I can still boot from the old C, I'm using it now - that's why I took the plunge :)

Does that mSATA drive show at all in Windows Disk Management?

I'm just wondering if that mSATA drive has to be C to be bootable.

ignatzatsonic said:

You need to include the system reserved partition as well as C.

Only just seen this.

I was told by the person who sold me the laptop that I did not need to copy the system reserved partition - I had been waiting for an answer to that very question for days before I went ahead

Yes, the mSATA shows in Windows Disk Management - that's where I initialised it and allocated a random drive letter, assuming it could be changed if need be. Well, I would want to change it to C and once it was up and running I intended to rename and repartition the old C/D.

clemenzina said:

ignatzatsonic said:

You need to include the system reserved partition as well as C.

Only just seen this.

I was told by the person who sold me the laptop that I did not need to copy the system reserved partition - I had been waiting for an answer to that very question for days before I went ahead

Waiting for an answer from whom? Prior owner?

In a typical installation, System Reserved contains the boot files. The PC won't boot without it.

You CAN install Windows without System Reserved, but the fact is that your installation has System Reserved and in all likelihood the boot files were on it. It would have to be transferred to the new drive---otherwise that new drive has no boot files.

I'd say do it again, this time including C and System Reserved. You could futz around and transfer boot files to the mSATA in some other way, but it would be just as simple to just do it over.

Post a screen shot of Disk Management as it now sits.

See in Disk Management - it's not set as Boot, as I can't see how to do it in BIOS.

It's not going to boot without boot files. Full stop.

If the boot files were on System Reserved and that partition was not cloned, the mSATA has no boot files and can't be expected to boot.

Post the WDM in the manner Britton asks.

I think Easy BCD can transfer boot files, but I'm not skilled in it. So I suggested you just do it over and include System Reserved.