Clone keeps crashing.

JohnthePilot

JohnthePilot

Visiting Expert, Hardware
Joined
Apr 6, 2012
Posts
76
Location
Cheltenham, near Wales
Hi,

I hope you can help with my problem.

Here are the answers to your questions:
Windows 7 SP1 64bit
Windows 7 SP1
Full retail version
Two years six months old
The OS has not been reinstalled on this machine
AMD FX8350 Black Edition 8 Core Processor (4.0/4.2GHz, 8MB Level 3 Cache, 8MB Level 2 Cache, Socket
Sapphire R9 270X 4GB 1020MHz GDDR 5
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 SKT-AM3+
Corsair CX750M
Home built
No model number
Desktop

My main OS is on a Samsung 2.5-Inch 250 GB 850 EVO Solid State Drive. I backup by making clones on the first partition of two of my three Seagate ST1000DM003 Barracuda 1TB disks. When I boot into the clone on drive E:, everything works perfectly but when I try to boot into the clone on drive D: I get a BSOD just after it says 'Starting Windows'.

This is the screen I get:
URL]
In case the img tags don't work, the imgur url is http://imgur.com/a/Jbwrl .

As I can boot up from two of my drives with no problems this would seem to suggest that it is the disk that is at fault but I have run every conceivable test without finding a problem. I've run chkdsk /f, sfc /scannow and all the basic tests in 'Seagate for Windows' and none of them reports any faults. When booted into my main drive I can go into drive D: using Explorer and it looks identical to drive E: I've reformatted drive D: and created another clone but I still get the same result. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 

Attachments

Can you create a clone of drive E: onto drive D: to see if maybe there is an issue with your current Windows boot system that only manifests in the clone?

The only other thing I can think of to try would be to get another hard drive you know is good and swap it for the one you suspect might be bad, create a clone on the good drive, and see if the crash occurs on the good drive.


You could also run hdtune error scan on the D: drive. It might reveal something the other diagnostics missed.
 
I tried cloning E: to D: with the same result but I was running XXClone from C: I'll try booting into E: then cloning it to D:

The link to hdtune isn't working. I'll try the free trial on their website.
 
I usually just run the free version of hdtune, so I don't have to worry about the trial for the pro version. The free version is available if you scroll down on the same page where you download the pro version.

Let us know how the clone works out after booting into E:.
 
Now I'm really confused.

First I ran the hdtune error scan - took nearly two hours - and it reported no errors, the same as Seatools. Then I booted into the E: drive and created a clone on the D: drive and lo, and behold it worked. So why should it work when I clone it from the E: drive when the E: drive itself was cloned from the C: drive and is, in fact, a newer clone than was on the D: drive? It just doesn't make sense. I suppose the next thing is to create a new clone on the E: drive and see if that works.
 
Yeah, and if that works, see if cloning the C: to the D: drive works or not.

It sounds like something is getting clobbered in the MBR during cloning for some reason.
 
I don't believe it! I've just created another clone on the D: drive and it worked. As a matter routine, I always check that the MBR is properly initialized, that the Boot Sector is properly initialized and that the BCD has a correct entry for the target drive. I've done this hundreds of times before without a problem. If/when this happens again, rather than trying to create another clone I'll try resetting those three items. I think the moral of this story is to try booting into the clone when it's created rather than waiting until it's actually needed. Fortunately, having the second clone got me out of this problem. The reason I noticed this problem was my main drive (C:) crashed after I installed the Windows Update KB4025341 and I had to boot into one of the clones. Now that both clones are OK, I'll run the Driver Verifier to see if drivers are the cause.

Many thanks for your help.
 
Glad both clones are now working. Let us know if you track down what may have been happening.
 

Has Sysnative Forums helped you? Please consider donating to help us support the site!

Back
Top