Hi Wolfie,
that was a good advice from you. I honestly like it, it is good refreshing tip.
I would certainly have tried something like that in the past.
Here are my tips:
Tired of looking for help, reading hundreds of Forum SOLVED and not solved postings,
I have solved Windows Restore and Backup crap once and for all, with cloned, and external HDDs.
I only recommend Paragon software for Windows, Seagate Wizard aka Acronis just does not cut it, has damaged my hard drive..
Cloned Windows would not boot after Acronis cloning either, and they would not fix the flaw in their software.
Have a box full of useless boot USB flash drives and boot DVD that did not work when the crunch came, ports and disk drives were dead.
Tip: do not keep any files (pictures, artworks, business, documents) on same hard disk drive as Windows OS.
If you have the OS crash, all your files will be safe on the external HDD, usable with other OS.
Just swap the cloned drives and you are back in business in less then 10 minutes.
I switched to Linux in the past, and again run in about 10 minutes, at least I had Internet, Email and Browser.
Unfortunately, many PC today deny you the option of extra bays for PC expansion, seen some without disk drives already.
Maybe you can then just swap your SSD after you find out how to hook it up to clone it.
To the software BOOT-REPAIR.
I would like to point out the very one problem with their technical help. I had received many recommendations akin to phoning for help when you phoneline is cut, from all over the software spectrum.
Below, Windows got this "fix" for free, checks for boot too with the same result; No boot but repairs was complete and successful.
Not even very funny.
Copied that from the site:
USE BOOT-REPAIR:
Launch Boot-Repair, then click the "Recommended repair" button. When repair is finished, note the URL (paste.ubuntu.com/XXXXX) that appears on a paper, then reboot and check if you recovered access to your OSs.
"If the repair did not succeed, indicate the URL to (e-mail address removed) in order to get help."
Well, it is pretty hard to emai for help without mail client or a browser in your OS, into which you have to boot to and can't.
I personally have encountered same problem dozens of times over the years.
Last Christmas when my Windows 10 crashed, I have not found any help on any forum that would work.
Small glimmer of hope was that after about unsuccessful 8 boot tries the Microsoft poped up a Restore screen all out of the blue.
Had to repeat the same failed boots sequence over many times to get it poped up again
Restored everything several times, checked HDD, and all passed with clean bill of health.
Windows 10 would not boot no matter what option was chosen. In the end my Windows 10 was a total loss.
All it needed to fix it, was to fix the boot file or even to repair the partition, leaving all else untouched.
So find this magic fix and you will be king. Boot-Repair is not it.
