SOLVED Booting from a usb hard drive cloned from windows 10 OS

[AGB]

I have a laptop that has a M.2 SSD and want to replace it with a larger SSD. My question is, can I clone the OS that is on the laptop to a 2.5 hard drive that is in a USB 2.5 enclosure and replace the SSD Drive in the laptop and then boot from the USB enclosed Hard drive (after setting Boot order in BIOS) then clone the Hard drive back to the just installed new Larger M.2 Drive?

 

[jmccleary50]

My experience trying to boot from any USB device was that it didn't work. I was able to boot from an F!2 startup via a previously prepared rescue disk then run recovery from an external drive connected to USB. Try that.

 

[Bighorn]

My experience also is that Windows doesn't like installing on a removable device. The Linux LiveDVDs are different, fully bootable, can run included programs and can be installed from the DVD. And can make bootable USB Thumb drives from it.

 

[AGB]

The previous answers were what I was expecting to get but hoping that I could boot from the cloned drive by a USB connection so I could clone back to the newly install M.2 SSD. Oh Well I will have to figure something else out.

 

[bassfisher6522]

I have a laptop that has a M.2 SSD and want to replace it with a larger SSD. My question is, can I clone the OS that is on the laptop to a 2.5 hard drive that is in a USB 2.5 enclosure and replace the SSD Drive in the laptop and then boot from the USB enclosed Hard drive (after setting Boot order in BIOS) then clone the Hard drive back to the just installed new Larger M.2 Drive?

What cloning software did you use?


I'm not sure if you fully understand the cloning process.

Yes you can clone you OS to any drive. Then replace the drive in laptop. The next step is; using the cloning software and take that image (clone) and reinstall. You don't boot from it.

There are plenty of youtube videos show how this process is done.

 

[AGB]

I have cloned many times using Macrium Reflect and no problem cloning and installing the cloned hard drive. I think I am not explaining my question very well. Let me try this again. I have an HP laptop with a 128 GB M.2 SSD Drive. (Only one drive slot and no slot for a 2.5 HD). So What I want to do is clone the 128 GB SSD to an Temporary external 2.5 laptop drive in a USB enclosure and then remove the 128 GB SSD From the HP. Then replace the 128 GB SSD with a larger capacity SSD back into the HP Laptop. I then would like to be able to boot the cloned drive that is in the USB enclosure (temporally ) setting the Boot sequence to USB hoping that it will boot to Windows 10 so I can clone the just cloned 2.5 drive back to the newly installed larger M.2 SSD Drive, without having to reinstall windows and install all the applications from scratch.

 

[bassfisher6522]

Theoretically it sounds possible. The only issue you might have will be booting of USB enclosure. Some have reported successfully doing it while others have reported massive implosions and failures.

Personally, and this is just me; when I upgrade a HDD.....a clean install is a must.

 

[AGB]

Thanks for your suggestions

 

[Grizzly]

I have cloned many times using Macrium Reflect and no problem cloning and installing the cloned hard drive. I think I am not explaining my question very well. Let me try this again. I have an HP laptop with a 128 GB M.2 SSD Drive. (Only one drive slot and no slot for a 2.5 HD). So What I want to do is clone the 128 GB SSD to an Temporary external 2.5 laptop drive in a USB enclosure and then remove the 128 GB SSD From the HP. Then replace the 128 GB SSD with a larger capacity SSD back into the HP Laptop. I then would like to be able to boot the cloned drive that is in the USB enclosure (temporally ) setting the Boot sequence to USB hoping that it will boot to Windows 10 so I can clone the just cloned 2.5 drive back to the newly installed larger M.2 SSD Drive, without having to reinstall windows and install all the applications from scratch.

Why so complicated?? Just make an image from the M.2 drive and restore that image onto the bigger M.2 drive. This has the advantage that you can restore sector by sector (I assume MR can do that). Cloning a running system can be a problem due to locked files. Better use a flash drive to start MR and make an image of the original drive, then exchange the original drive for the bigger one and restore the image previously made onto that bigger drive. No locked files there...
This is how I would do it....