SOLVED Cannot boot from a cloned bootable drive

[Our3swimmers]

Hi, I have a dell running Windows 7 Pro running 64 bit. Recently, Windows 7 has been reporting a “Windows detected a hard disk problem” error from time to time. In anticipation of a hard drive failure someday, I cloned the 500 G drive (where the OS is) to a 2T drive using Macrium Reflect hoping to boot from the 2T drive from now on. After the drive is cloned, I use Reflect to save the bootmgr.exe to the 2T drive.

Upon start up, I changed the boot drive priority to boot first from the 2T drive then the 500G but no luck. Every time when the computer boots up it will still boot from the 500G drive. Windows Explorer shows that the 500G drive has a different icon (with the windows logo) and the 2T drive without. Disk Management also confirms that the 500G drive has (Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) while the 2T drive only has (System, Page File, Active, Primary Partition). I have also checked that both the root directory have bootmgr, hiberfil.sys, pagefile.sys. Any idea how to make this work? I don’t want to reinstall all the software all over again. I have looked over several similar threads in this forum and tried some of the solutions without luck. I know there are experts in this forum who can spot the problem and help me fix it. Thanks a million in advance.

 

[clifford_cooley]

Do you have Windows 7 install Disk?

If not you can create "Windows 7 Repair Disc" while booted in Windows from the 500GB drive. Type "create" is the start menu search box, you should see an option for "Create a System Repair Disc".

Use the Windows 7 install disk or System Repair Disc while trying to boot to the 2TB drive. Either one should find and fix the issue.

 

[Our3swimmers]

Thank you so much clifford_cooley! You are wonderful. Your instruction is clear and concise. I followed your instructions and the problem is solved. Thank you again.