I installed a new 2 TB HD and used Disk Manager in Win.7 to quick format the new D: drive.

I cloned my 2 TB C: to the 2 TB D: but now the new drive is D: for MBR and H: for file system.  I want just a single D: drive.

If I boot to the new drive (it boots) all the drive letters are messed up.

How did the clone result in this?  How do I fix it?  I'd be fine doing a quick format of the new drive to wipe it and start over, so long as it doesn't do the same thing again.

Neil

A format is a volume-level operation, not a disk-level operation.  If you're cloning a disk that contains a Windows installation, you'll want to delete all existing partitions by using the "clean" command in the Diskpart command line utility.  I'm also not sure what you mean that the cloned drive is "D for MBR".  Drive letters are assigned to volumes, and the MBR doesn't exist inside a volume.  Are you maybe referring to a partition that is supposed to be hidden?  A screenshot might help here.  Additionally, cloning C would imply that you only cloned one partition, namely the C partition, in which case it wouldn't have been possible to end up with multiple drive letters.  Do you mean that you cloned the entire disk that contains your C partition, including hidden partitions?  That's the correct way to do this, but in that case you didn't just clone your C partition.

In any case, when cloning a disk, in the first step of the wizard where you "stage" the disk allows you customize drive letter assignments, including indicating that the target partition shouldn't get a drive letter at all.  Normally if you're cloning a partition that doesn't have a drive letter on the source, the corresponding destination partition won't have a drive letter either by default, without you having to do anything special.  But again I'm not entirely sure what you did here based on your text description.

As for drive letters being messed up when you boot from your new disk, that might be something you have to fix manually in Disk Management by manually changing drive letters back to what you want once.

+x

 

jphughan - 25 January 2021 6:58 PM

A format is a volume-level operation, not a disk-level operation.  If you're cloning a disk that contains a Windows installation, you'll want to delete all existing partitions by using the "clean" command in the Diskpart command line utility.  I'm also not sure what you mean that the cloned drive is "D for MBR".  Drive letters are assigned to volumes, and the MBR doesn't exist inside a volume.  Are you maybe referring to a partition that is supposed to be hidden?  A screenshot might help here.  Additionally, cloning C would imply that you only cloned one partition, namely the C partition, in which case it wouldn't have been possible to end up with multiple drive letters.  Do you mean that you cloned the entire disk that contains your C partition, including hidden partitions?  That's the correct way to do this, but in that case you didn't just clone your C partition.

In any case, when cloning a disk, in the first step of the wizard where you "stage" the disk allows you customize drive letter assignments, including indicating that the target partition shouldn't get a drive letter at all.  Normally if you're cloning a partition that doesn't have a drive letter on the source, the corresponding destination partition won't have a drive letter either by default, without you having to do anything special.  But again I'm not entirely sure what you did here based on your text description.

As for drive letters being messed up when you boot from your new disk, that might be something you have to fix manually in Disk Management by manually changing drive letters back to what you want once.

Much of this is over my head.  When I went to assign a destination for the clone there was nothing to choose from so I did a quick format of the new drive.  Since it was the 2nd HD it was assigned D:.   It was then available in Macrium Reflect for me to select as destination.

> I'm also not sure what you mean that the cloned drive is "D for MBR".

My poor memory.  It is described in Win. Explorer as "System Reserved D:.



H: is where all the cloned directories and files are.

This is a current screen shot, not as it was when I cloned, but this is what I saw:


On the top row MBR Disk 1 was checked, and to the right of it C: was checked.  I clicked on Clone this disk (red oval).  The lower row seen here was not present at the time because the disk was just quick-formatted.

I will reformat the new drive and try again.

Thanks for your reply!
Neil

Given that the clone was performed properly, if you haven't already reformatted, it would probably be easiest to simply go into Disk Management and remove the D drive letter assignment from that System Reserved partition.  Then boot from your new disk and move on.

But if you've already wiped out your target, or just for your general information, disks do not have to be formatted in order to appear in the "Create a backup" tab that you showed in your screenshot, or to be selectable as a destination in that actual clone wizard.  Shown below is a completely wiped disk, prior to any initialization, partition creation, or formatting.

Here's how it looks in the "Create a backup" tab:


And shown here is the clone wizard that appears after you click "Clone this disk" under the source disk.  In the screenshot, I had clicked "Select a disk to clone to", and as you can see that blank disk is selectable as a target.


But if you want to change drive letter settings, after you click "Copy selected partitions" in the wizard to stage the destination disk, select the System Reserved partition in your Destination and click Cloned Partition Properties to bring up the window shown in the screenshot below.  Note in the upper-right corner there's an option to set its Drive Letter to None, although that should already be the default if your source partition doesn't have a drive letter assigned. However, it might NOT be the default if you manually format a partition beforehand and therefore are cloning "into" an existing partition rather than onto a blank disk.

+x

 

jphughan - 25 January 2021 9:03 PM

Given that the clone was performed properly, if you haven't already reformatted, it would probably be easiest to simply go into Disk Management and remove the D drive letter assignment from that System Reserved partition.  Then boot from your new disk and move on.

But if you've already wiped out your target, or just for your general information, disks do not have to be formatted in order to appear in the "Create a backup" tab that you showed in your screenshot, or to be selectable as a destination in that actual clone wizard.  Shown below is a completely wiped disk, prior to any initialization, partition creation, or formatting.

Here's how it looks in the "Create a backup" tab:


And shown here is the clone wizard that appears after you click "Clone this disk" under the source disk.  In the screenshot, I had clicked "Select a disk to clone to", and as you can see that blank disk is selectable as a target.


But if you want to change drive letter settings, after you click "Copy selected partitions" in the wizard to stage the destination disk, select the System Reserved partition in your Destination and click Cloned Partition Properties to bring up the window shown in the screenshot below.  Note in the upper-right corner there's an option to set its Drive Letter to None, although that should already be the default if your source partition doesn't have a drive letter assigned. However, it might NOT be the default if you manually format a partition beforehand and therefore are cloning "into" an existing partition rather than onto a blank disk.

jphughan,

> it would probably be easiest to simply go into Disk Management and remove the D drive letter assignmentit would probably be easiest to simply go into Disk Management and remove the D drive letter assignment

Worked like a charm, so easy.

MANY THANKS for your help!

Neil