"Invalid partition table" error, but the system boots

[Trouble]

I take it that you are looking for a way to ignore the message, rather than try and work out why I'm getting it?

Pretty much.
That's what you are doing each time you tap the space bar to continue.

As far as the "WHY"......
I couldn't say exactly.
Maybe the BIOS is expecting to see a particular drive, attached in a particular way, with a particular partition structure, and....
For some reason, it's not seeing what it expects to see and as a consequence is pitching an error to alert you to that issue.

I remember working on some Dell servers several years ago and employing tech support from Dell, who provided me with a number of firmware updates for the system board as well as for a RAID drive controller that I had to apply in a particular order to resolve the issue I was having with that computer.

Maybe your initial cloning operation did not carry over some unique identifier that the system is expecting to see as it enumerates the hardware.

 

[Yossu]

I guessed it was something like that!

I guess as long as the machine is working OK, if I can find a way to suppress the message, I'll be OK.

Thanks

 

[Trouble]

As possibly a last thing to try just in case it is not the System / OS drive that is producing the error / message.....
Try removing the interface cables from all other drives attached to the system, leaving ONLY the system drive (DRIVE 0) and see if it still does the same thing.

 

[Yossu]

Hmm, interesting idea. I can try that as well when I reboot.

Thanks

 

[Norton]

I don't think you are being ignored. Problems can be be so complex, it's hard to troubleshoot with no hands ON.
Go to the Dell website as suggested. They have an excellent trouble shooting and repair program, I think it's called Dell Detect. If you don't have the model or service tag number, the program will detect them for you, run the troubleshooter, repair and suggest bios and or driver updates for your PC.

 

[Yossu]

I don't think you are being ignored. Problems can be be so complex, it's hard to troubleshoot with no hands ON.

I understand that, and I really appreciate the help I've been getting. I guess I was a little surprised at having so many replies initially, then sudden silence

Go to the Dell website as suggested. They have an excellent trouble shooting and repair program, I think it's called Dell Detect. If you don't have the model or service tag number, the program will detect them for you, run the troubleshooter, repair and suggest bios and or driver updates for your PC.

Thanks, I didn't notice that suggestion before. I'll give it a go.

 

[Ben Myers]

Windows has a native disk and partition utility called "Diskpart", but it is difficult to understand and use. You might try an independent utility and see if it can identify and remove the offending entry.

https://www.google.com/search?q=partition+editor

Ben

 

[Alesa]

It could be:

• The boot sequence is wrong.
• The BIOS is out-dated.
• There are two or more partitions are marked as active partition on the hard drive.
• MBR (master boot record) is corrupted.

So you can take measures accordingly, change boot sequence, update BIOS, keep only one active partition, and rebuild MBR. You may want to know detailed steps here: fix invalid partition table in Windows 10.
Kind regards.