Posted on 01/08/2023 8:56:26 PM PST by Paul R.
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And why do the 1st 2 small EFI partitions seem to clone just fine?
One possible reason your cloning operation is not completing successfully is that the EFI partition is not being cloned successfully and your software is shutting down after this and not giving you appropriate error messages.
As far as why it worked on your other Windows 10 machines... Older hardware that run Windows 10 fine do not necessarily have all the latest security "enhancements". This transition did not take place all at one time, so it is hard to say when various hardware manufacturers made various changes. Most of the changes have likely taken place within the last 5 or so years.
On most newer hardware the computer can recognize only one EFI/UEFI partition at a time. It is hidden so that you typically need a tool made for handling partitions to look at what is in it. When you try to clone this partition while it is active the results can be unpredictable.
One way to get around this is make a bootable USB drive using a free tool like Hyren’s Boot CD.
https://www.hirensbootcd.org/.
At that point type “advanced startup” without the quotes into your Windows search box. Open the app and choose to restart under the advanced startup heading. At that point you can get into your bios settings to make sure that the computer can boot from USB using legacy settings, disable Secure Boot and change your boot order. You might then have to restart Windows 10 and go back to advanced startup before you can boot into the Hyren’s Boot CD USB drive you have made.
At that point you should be able to successfully clone the drive or partitions using one of the free tools included on the Hyren’s Boot CD PE Drive. Jumping through all of these hoops is a pain in the butt done in the name of security. And sometimes depending on how your system is setup Windows will change your UEFI/BIOS settings during this process on its own. Which can be both mystifying and frustrating at the same time. After successfully cloning you should then go back to advanced startup and reset the settings in BIOS back to what they were.
Oh, and you may or may not be able to get into BIOS/UEFI to change settings and boot order using function keys and not bothering to go through advanced startup.
The other solution of course is to use external devices made for cloning that have connectors that allow you to connect various types of hard drives, SSDs, SD Cards, USB drives etc. and clone them without being as limited by your computer hardware.
Here are a few devices that I own that are used for this type of purpose. Some USB3 Hubs can also work fine if you have appropriate enclosures:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MVRS38Q
I should add that the reason using a tool on the Hyren’s Boot CD will probably work is that the EFI partition that you are trying to clone would not be active when you booted from a USB drive.
But the other thing that I should have mentioned is that a newer version of the software you have been using is likely to work or some of the other software suggested here is also likely to work. This might cost you a little bit, but might save you a lot of frustration.
Oh, also... the error message you are getting, “Clone Failed - - VerifyFileSystem Failed.” is likely the appropriate message you should get when the EFI/UEFI partition has not been cloned correctly.
If the thing shipped with 7 or 10, it is not necessary to extract the product key. It’s in the system’s firmware and Windows will recognize it.
Is there some reason you don’t want to do a fresh install of 10?
Also, the N22 is a slightly glorified ChromeBook - in fact, they sell a version of it as a ChromeBook. It’s not great; personally I’d replace it with something else.
Maybe that’s it. I was going by the info. from Macrium advising that particular error message indicated a problem with (Macrium) reading files on the source drive.
(FWIW, Macrium also stated the problem was likely to be a hardware problem uncovered by their software stressing the hardware, but I can find no supportive evidence.)
I do have a USB 3 to (2.5”) SATA drive adapter / cable which I’ve used successfully in the past to clone an OS to a SSD when I was short on internal cables or ports. (Clone from HDD to SSD, then swap the SSD into the HDD’s place.) And I do have a spare SSD. So, I’ve never done this, but I “should” be able to clone to the external SSD, and then clone from the external SSD to the M.2 SATA drive.
...Assuming there really is not a problem (that I cannot otherwise find) with the source eMMC, as Macrium seems to say.
If those security enhancements started happening 5 years ago, Macrium may be behind the times. OTOH, Macrium shows partitions Windows Disk Management does not. (One of those is one of the pair of small partitions that Macrium shows as cloning successfully, before the process blows up when it gets to “C”.)
Noted regarding the function keys to get into BIOS — it does appear they do not work with this N22. (Machine was mfg. in March of 2016.)
I’ll plow into the rest later: My wife’s vehicle just went “down” (appears an ignition coil may have failed), so, priorities... ;-)
Thanks for all the info.!
The N22 shipped with Win 7 Pro and I updated it to Win 10 Pro during the free upgrade to 10 period.
The main reason I didn’t want to reinstall the OS is the work that goes with that to get everything re-customized to my preferences. But then again, at this point, that may be a smaller factor. There’s also a familiarity factor in that I don’t know how to force the reinstall to the M.2 drive instead of the eMMC (which latter I doubt will do me any good.) And if I DO move the OS to the M.2 drive this way, then I have to reinstall my non-MS programs — although in THIS particular case that is not a big problem as I do not have a lot of programs on this machine anyway, most that are were running from the SD card / slot, and I’d want to reinstall them to the SSD anyway...
Somewhat agreed about the N22, although it certainly proved a better machine (in use and reliability) than my previous ASUS T100TA. Arguably, since I’m very happy so far with my Dell Latitude 5490, perhaps I should just look for a smaller version of it. (These “netbooks” are mostly for when I need to “travel light”, or, at least somewhat more “compact”.)
FWIW, I would not be surprised if Lenovo did not sell more of the Chromebook version of the N22 than the Windows version. A lot of primary schools use the Chromebook version in classes (including the classes at the small church school my wife teaches at.)
My biggest gripe about the N22 is that I never really adapted well to its keyboard, while the Dell 5490 is wonderful in that regard, for me.
Interesting list.
Is MS still doing free Win 10 to Win 11 upgrades?
(Requires 8th gen or better I-series CPU, of course.)
I’d suggest looking at the Dell Latitude 7xxx series of Ultrabooks. In good shape, they can often be found for under $200 with 8th gen or newer processors.
Also, the upgrade to 10 (now 11) is still free, they just don’t advertise it.
You can get a copy of PCMover Pro to migrate most of your programs and settings from one computer to another.
Yes.... and even though your bios has this embedded. I would still extract the windows ten key and copy it. Just to be sure.
You can run Windows 11 on lower than 8 gen intel. There are youtube videos on how-to.
What you are dealing with is much more similar to the issues that I have with a Nextbook Flexx 10 convertible laptop/tablet from about the same time period. There are similarities with making a standalone Linux USB drive but it is not as useful of a comparison.
The BIOS on our Flexx 10 can only be described as bizarre... The BIOS/UEFI was designed to keep people from switching a machine that is very challenged running Windows 10 (especially after a few updates) to Android or Linux, but it also creates all sorts of difficulties and challenges when trying to do any type of upgrade. Despite its eccentricities my wife likes the old little POS so I have wasted a considerable amount of time trying to keep it going.
Your Lenovo is much more capable than the Flexx 10 but I can guarantee that you are going to have further challenges trying to complete your upgrade.
I doubt that Macrium is actually successfully cloning two small partitions with Macrium before it chokes on your “C” drive. You should probably try manually deleting whatever partitions have been cloned onto your 256 GB SDATA M.2 and then clone just your efi partition and then clone your “C” drive and forget about the other partition which is likely a recovery partition, a partition made by Windows sandbox or other virtual machine software, or just plain unused space that is being recognized incorrectly by Macrium. I am not buying what Macrium customer support is telling you other than you seem to be working with challenging hardware.
I have been looking over the Lenovo N22 support page to see if I could find anything helpful for you, but without the serial number I can't find anything specific to your machine.
You might also check out what others have experienced with the Lenovo N22 on various forums. I am sure that you are not the first to run into this difficulty trying to upgrade the SSD.
After experiencing this same type of thing on previous occasions... good luck... you are probably going to need it.
Haha - ok, I’ll have to digest that.
I’ve reinitialized the M.2 SDD IIRC 3 times now (each time I tried or thought I was trying something a little different!): That wipes out the partitions Macrium creates and leaves a 260 MB EFI System Partition (same exact size as the one for the eMMC drive), and a 238.2 GB NTFS Basic Data Partition (D:).
Interestingly, the M.2 drive gets assigned as “Disk 0”.
I’ll have to come back to this maybe Friday: Our local TV mets and NWS are both predicting strong storms and in particular large hail later tonight, so, I gotta do what prep I can and hope Mo’ Nature doesn’t present us with too much of a mess...
Thanks for the info.!
Yes, I’ve run across but not tried any of the workarounds to get Win 11 to run on earlier I-series processors. They were for 6th gen, IIRC. I don’t know if I’ve found any for 3rd or 4th gen (my HP6300’s). In any event, since there’s no rush, I’m inclined to let them (workarounds) “simmer” a bit.
My wife and I have been hobbled by persistent and miserable Covid infections since Christmas... so we haven’t been able to do much about the mess made by the recent wind and rainstorms that have blown through. I spent a couple hours outside trying to pick things up last week and then had a relapse that was worse than the original attack.
Good luck with your project. I have been keeping busy messing around with a few of my own.
I would much rather mess around with a FHD Dell Inspiron like this one. https://www.ebay.com/itm/314316028934
Intel i5-1035G1 1GHz/ 12GB DDR4
____________
Just install an NVME drive 256gb or higher. I would buy it, but have laptop overload.
I would sell you this one that a backlit keyboard and IPS display with 300 NITS brightness. https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c06955370
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