An EFI System Partition (ESP) is not merely "important", but absolutely essential for the machine itself to be able to boot any installed HD or SSD at all in UEFI-GPT mode, just as a Master Boot Record is essential for BIOS-MBR booting.  Multiple ESPs, on the other hand, are generally redundant (not necessarily a bad thing, but not actually needed) just for supporting a multi-boot configuration.  In any case, the machine uses only one of them during the part of its start-up process that precedes the loading of any operating system.  A single ESP/MSR set of partitions on just one physical drive (as in this case) is quite capable of loading multiple OSes located in multiple partitions on multiple physical drives installed in the machine. (Externals and LAN boots are another matter beyond the scope of this discussion.)  OS selection is what the menu and other optional entries in the boot configuration data (BCD) store are all about and OS (or PE, or RE) loading only occurs thereafter.  I'm not sure why you would suggest that Grub might be needed or helpful in these circumstances.  I hope nothing that I said led you to that conclusion.

__
P.S.:  Anyone wishing to understand UEFI and how it actually works in greater depth couldn't do much better than by reading this article by Adam Williamson.  It's lengthy and it's written from a Linux perspective, but that doesn't matter and, as the author says, it's "aimed at regular everyday folks".  An even more in-depth explanation of the EFI System Partition and its role in the UEFI-GPT boot process is provided in this follow-up article by Peter Jones.  Relevant to this case in particular, note the sentence that begins: "At this point, the firmware will start initializing all peripherals it can find, in whatever order it happens to choose ..."  Whether that is considered as a "benefit" of UEFI-GPT booting can only be a matter of opinion.  Personally, I'm not a big fan.

Regards, Richard V. ("Arvy")

Hi Arvy,
 
Thanks for all the hints and tips.
Here's one that's perhaps suitable for your situation.
 
Greetings from Amsterdam,
 
Hendrick

Greetings to you from Canada, and thank you very much for your most gracious, kind and generous "hint".  I suppose I must have been misled in thinking that everyone posting under this topic came here in the same open-minded quest for precise technical knowledge and help as the OP who said:

I can see now that I was wrong in attributing that same motivation to everyone else here and I apologise if my misguided attempt to respond as fully and precisely as possible to your comment was unwanted and unappreciated in your case. I'll try much harder to restrain myself from posting such "nerdy" technical answers in the future.  Finding lots of wonderful "non-nerdy" examples to follow shouldn't be too difficult.  Perhaps I might even be able to discover a few really ignorant ones if I try hard enough.  On the other hand, why bother.  Obviously, this place can deteriorate fast enough without my contribution.

Regards, Richard V. ("Arvy")

Didn't I read WAY back in the BBS/Compuserve days that ALL forum threads eventually deteriorate to talk of Nazi's. Is that where this is going!!!??

I, the humble OP, actually appreciated the "nerdy" posts. Why I came here. I'd a gone to the Twitter if I'd a wanted short, non-nerdy, answers. Ida had to create an account first, LOL.

In the vain of trying to drag this back, what I'd like to do now is clean install Windows 10 on a new, never seen buy the UEFI BIOS, drive, and then get my stuff back. I tried RESTORING, but of course, the CURRENT Windows 10 partition, even though GPT, is not UEFI BOOTABLE. How can I go about this? I've installed Windows 10 3 times so far, all that goes well, go into the BIOS, set the boot drive order to this new one and it boots up UEFI no problem, Windows 10 activated because it's seen this hardware previously. But now, how do I get the "stuff" from the old boot drive, remember, non-UEFI, on this new one? I tried restoring just the C:\ partition from the old drive but it won't boot. File by file restore some way??

This may actually be a Reflect thing, dragging this thread back to TOTAL relevance!!!

"Arvy" I'm off the read the nerdy post at the link you so graciously provided. Thanks.

Not if I can help it.  For your sake, I'll continue being "nerdy" just a little while longer in this thread.


Just a small but possibly important clarification.  In fact, it appears that every one of your OSes has been installed on a drive that was formatted with a GUID Partition Table (GPT) layout, but only one of them currently includes the system partitions that are required to make it independently bootable by your machine in UEFI-GPT mode.  In other words, the issue isn't so much one of drive formatting, but more the fact that the single GPT drive that has the set of ESP/MSR partitions required for UEFI-GPT booting is not the one that you want it to be.  For whatever reason, you want your Windows 10 OS to be located on that independently bootable drive.

So, basically, if I've understood that correctly, it looks to me if you have two choices.  Either you can either swap OS partitions between the two drives, or you can set about making the drive on which Win10 is currently located bootable with the required system partitions.  Reflect will allow the first option if the used space in either partition can fit in the space available in the other, but you'd need to correct the BCD menu entries thereafter.  In the latter case, you'd end up with two UEFI-GPT bootable drives and whether your machine as currently configured would then actually use the one you want it to use is another question.  From a purely practical standpoint, it really doesn't matter much so long as it's able to boot any of your OS choices from the BCD menu in the system partition that does get used.

Frankly, I'm a little bit puzzled by the strength of your concern about which OS is on which physical drive, especially since you have other data drive partitions, but I'm sure you have your own very good reasons.


Regards, Richard V. ("Arvy")

My goal, however misguided , is to end up with Windows 10 bootable directly, then I'd remove the other two OS drives, Win 7 and Win 8, completely. As it currently stands, the drive containing Windows 7 is the UEFI bootable drive. That's also the "oldest" SSD in the system. If I continue as I'm currently set up, I CAN boot into Windows 10 and life goes on. But, IF the Windows 7 SSD dies, I'm screwed because I cannot boot to the Windows 10 disk any way I currently know of. I believe this to be true because I've physically disconnected all drives but the Windows 10 drive and cannot boot!!

All that said, your two choices would work IF I knew how to do either!!

Choice one, swap OS partitions between the two drives. How do I go about that?

Choice two, set about making the drive on which Win10 is currently located bootable, seems to the me like the best solution, but I don't know how to do that either! Can it be "easily" explained?

I seem to think there is option 3 also, disconnect ALL the current drives, hook up a new drive, install Windows 10. Then set about getting the partition containing Windows 10 to contain the old Windows 10 stuff so I'm back where I was (am?) but with one drive, Win 10 like it is currently, bootable. I've done all this, unhook all drives, hook up new drive, install Win 10, enter BIOS and set it to the boot drive, done, I have a clean, activated, Win10 install that boots. But my "stuff" isn't there. I can't seem to figure out how to copy the files from the original Win10 drive to the new Win10 drive. I tried restoring, but an image restore apparently wipes the drive and "restores" and the drive is unbootable like the original! I've thought about simply backing up the Win 10 original drive to a NAS or server folder, or even to one of the other HD's in the system, and copying them back once the newly bootable Win 10 drive is up and going. 

Keep in mind, much of this is a learning process and "because I can". I have many other computers in the house to "use", I have many SSD's and spinning HD's to draw into the fray. I'm used to the old BIOS method, I'd clone a drive to another one, go into the BIOS,  set it to bootable, upgrade it to the next iteration of Windows, and go. Always had the fallback position of going back to the old OS by simply going into the BIOS and resetting the bootable drive. When I was comfortable with the new OS and that everything was cool, I'd pull the older OS drive out and repurpose. I got off on the wrong foot with UEFI because I installed the new OS on a new drive and Windows/UEFI took over and left the original as the ONLY BOOTABLE drive in the system. I'm trying to learn how to handle what I used to do with UEFI, I guess.

Whew, out of breath............

Thanks again, or in advance, or whatever.

Okay, I think I got it.  It is certainly true that, in the event of total failure of the drive on which the ESP/MSR boot system is located, you'd be unable to load your Win10 OS ... or any other OS, for that matter.  That will remain true, however, regardless of where any of the OS partitions are located, whether on the same drive as those system partitions or any other.  In any case, I'm not here to question whatever you think is best.

Cloning or restoring a partition anywhere space is available on any drive is a fairly straightforward procedure that you've already done at least once.  Swapping two partitions is essentially a matter of backing up both of them and restoring them to each other's locations with whatever size adjustments may be necessary within the limits imposed by used and available space.  See these KB articles for details if needed.  Alternatively if you prefer a "fresh start" on the drive where Win10 is currently located, the diskpart.exe steps that are involved in cleaning a GPT disk and making it bootable are covered in this KB article under the heading "Restoring an MBR System image to UEFI/GPT".  Don't let the title throw you.  You just want to follow the diskpart.exe steps for making the drive UEFI-GPT bootable and restore your Windows 10 partition which will have been destroyed by the diskpart cleaning process.*  Note the cautionary statement in that KB article: "DO NOT restore the MSR partition from the image file ...".  Just create the MSR partition as per step 10 and then use Reflect's WinPE "Fix Windows Boot Problems" for the necessary MSR and BCD boot menu adjustments.

As I said earlier, please ensure that you have everything well backed up and verified first, just in case.  Good luck.

__
* Either that, or you can do a completely fresh Win10 install if you want to, provided that Microsoft's validation servers have awarded the required "digital entitlement" to your previous upgrade.   If you go that route, save yourself time by getting and using the so-called "November Update" version (Win10-1511) for the installation.

Regards, Richard V. ("Arvy")

Got it! It was so easy I can't believe I fretted over this for a week. But, everything is intuitive when you know how to do it!!

Seeing as I put the new-to-this-computer SSD in and installed Windows 10 clean and it was activated, all I had to do was boot the Macrium Restore media and copy the C:\ partition from the image of the OTHER Windows 10 drive to this new one, boot, done. Because Windows install media was booted UEFI, it set the unseen SSD up UEFI and the correct partitions were created.


So.........I learned a lot about UEFI and how to handle this in the future so I can continue to do my old tricks upgrading to new Windows versions with a fall back position to boot the old drive. Just don't install Windows clean on a new hard drive where there's an existing UEFI bootable drive connected because then it'll create a boot menu and one will only be able to boot from the one drive multi-boot style. That's OK if that's what you want, but that's not what I wanted!!

I believe I could now clone the Windows 10 drive to a new drive, or an old drive with all the old partitions removed beforehand, and go into the BIOS and change the boot drive and be good. I'll try that soon.

Thanks to all who helped out here, nerd or otherwise!!

  Great!  Well done!  Sometimes these things appear to be more complex than they really are ... even for us nerds. 

Regards, Richard V. ("Arvy")

That's why I bought a power switch to avoid things going wrong:
http://www.amazon.com/Lian-Li-Power-Controller-Model/dp/B004TMDVU6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451765533&sr=8-1&keywords=BZ-H06B+SATA+Power+Switch

+x

 

thosj - 16 December 2015 11:21 PM

I've been using Reflect for years, currently v6 4 licenses. I've cloned many hard drives, for example, going from HDD to SSD, or SSD to larger SSD. It's worked flawlessly every time, BUT, all my cases were with conventional BIOS computers. I simply went into the BIOS and changed the boot device and WAL-LAH, done, worked dozens of times.

But.......now I have a UEFI BIOS Gigabyte GA‑Z77X‑UD3H motherboard and I can't figure out how to boot from the clone. I've cloned the C:\ drive. I shut down and disconnected all but the clone. It won't boot. I go into the BIOS and pick it, or the boot menu and pick it, and it says put in a disk with an operating system and reboot. No matter what I've tried I can't get it to boot from the clone. Hook up the other drives and it boots back to Windows 8.1 fine, actually to the boot menu where I can choose Windows 8.1 or Windows 7. But, alas, no matter what I've tried I can't get the clone to boot.
I have UEFI/Legacy boot set in the BIOS. I tried changing boot priority, nothing. The original Windows boot is a GPT partition, so I imagine the clone is, too.
I've searched the web for UEFI info 'til I'm blue in the face and I can't figure it out.
Any ideas?

Edit:
I MAY be on my way to solving this! I booted from the Reflect restore media and fixed the boot on all the disks it saw. Now when I boot I get the Windows Boot menu and it has 3 choices and not just 2 as before. So now I can boot to the clone from there. I MAY be able to boot from the clone from the UEFI boot menu now, too, time will tell.
My goal here is to test upgrade the clone to Windows 10 and if successful, carry on, if not, back to the original Win 8.1 install, clone again and try again until I'm successful. All this because this is the 5th Win 10 upgrade/install, several have NOT gone well, and this one is my wife's main system so no (and I mean ZERO) room for error!!!
Fingers crossed, but still open to suggestions.

I know it's a 2015 post, But I too have Imaged a ton of drives in the Old BIOS systems. This UEFI stuff, while not new, is new to me. I have an ASUS P8B75-m LX board, Bios date of 2013 or so. It's on a Win_7 Hme Prem x86 box for a security camera system. The System is not connected to the Web. I'm thinking it doesn't need UEFI anyway. But ASUS says they have it on by default in the Motherboard.
The HDD S.M.A.R.T. info shows Power on Hours = 35120. That is 4 years with 12 power cycles! Now that I've inherited this Monstrosity, I'd like some backups! My clones and image restores to new HDD's wont come up. Check out this info.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/disabling-secure-boot
https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1016356
The screenshots for the ASUS BIOS are helpful to me So i'll be going in to the BIOS looking for ...Advanced/Boot/Secure Boot/Other OS. This looks to be the fix I have not tried yet. I'm betting this is the roadblock I'm hitting. hope this is helpful to somebody...

Secure Boot support didn't arrive until Windows 8, so yes that would definitely have to be off to run Windows 7.  And since Windows 7 32-bit doesn't support UEFI either (in fact even the 64-bit version doesn't properly support UEFI even when it's set up on a GPT disk), you'll also need to find the option to enable BIOS boot mode rather than only allowing UEFI.  That option goes by different names, but look for something like "Legacy boot", "BIOS mode", "UEFI CSM", "Compatibility Support Module" or "Legacy Option ROMs".  Additionally, someone else here was just trying to migrate their Win7 32-bit system to new hardware and found that their motherboard would not support Windows 7 32-bit at all, regardless of configuration, even though it would support 64-bit, so you could have that problem too.  Here's that thread: https://forum.macrium.com/Topic21155.aspx

+x

 

jphughan - 29 January 2018 2:49 PM

Secure Boot support didn't arrive until Windows 8, so yes that would definitely have to be off to run Windows 7.  And since Windows 7 32-bit doesn't support UEFI either (in fact even the 64-bit version doesn't properly support UEFI even when it's set up on a GPT disk), you'll also need to find the option to enable BIOS boot mode rather than only allowing UEFI.  That option goes by different names, but look for something like "Legacy boot", "BIOS mode", "UEFI CSM", "Compatibility Support Module" or "Legacy Option ROMs".  Additionally, someone else here was just trying to migrate their Win7 32-bit system to new hardware and found that their motherboard would not support Windows 7 32-bit at all, regardless of configuration, even though it would support 64-bit, so you could have that problem too.  Here's that thread: https://forum.macrium.com/Topic21155.aspx

Thanks. The System is running, but 4 years of continuous operation on a Western Digital AV 500GB with no back up is disconcerting. The Images I created appear valid. The ASUS Bios freaks out anytime the Western Digital AV 500GB is not present. It goes straight to a "Operating System Missing, Insert Boot Device or Press F1 to retry."
At some point it may just make more sense to have the Condo Association buy a more modern CCTV computer with documentation and available drivers for supported/modern CCTV cards. I
 think I've dickered with every legacy/Compatibility/Bios mode setting they have. Maybe not the right combination. The only thing I haven't done is say yes to deleting the (PK) Product Key in the Uefi bios secure boot section. I ran Belarc Advisor and copied the Product key to a .txt file in case I get that deep. The legacy Conexant BT878 PCI capture card is 32 bit OS only. ( XP/Vista) it no longer has driver support. I think Eyemax DVR must have a proprietary 32 bit driver running. It's a real Sh*tshow. I dislike inheriting junk. Could there be some other Firmware holding Hardware ID's as a secure system boot deal?

+x

 

JohnnyNeutron - 29 January 2018 11:56 PM

Thanks. The System is running, but 4 years of continuous operation on a Western Digital AV 500GB with no back up is disconcerting. The Images I created appear valid. The ASUS Bios freaks out anytime the Western Digital AV 500GB is not present. It goes straight to a "Operating System Missing, Insert Boot Device or Press F1 to retry."
At some point it may just make more sense to have the Condo Association buy a more modern CCTV computer with documentation and available drivers for supported/modern CCTV cards. I
 think I've dickered with every legacy/Compatibility/Bios mode setting they have. Maybe not the right combination. The only thing I haven't done is say yes to deleting the (PK) Product Key in the Uefi bios secure boot section. I ran Belarc Advisor and copied the Product key to a .txt file in case I get that deep. The legacy Conexant BT878 PCI capture card is 32 bit OS only. ( XP/Vista) it no longer has driver support. I think Eyemax DVR must have a proprietary 32 bit driver running. It's a real Sh*tshow. I dislike inheriting junk. Could there be some other Firmware holding Hardware ID's as a secure system boot deal?

You don't need and definitely don't want to delete keys in the Secure Boot area.  Those keys aren't Windows product keys, but rather cryptographic keys that allow the system to determine whether a particular bootloader is trusted.  If you wipe those out, then you won't be able to use Secure Boot even with OSes that do support it.  All you need to do is disable Secure Boot, not destroy it.

But if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying the ASUS motherboard does boot from the Western Digital drive but will NOT boot from any other drive that was cloned from that working Western Digital drive?  In that case, motherboard configuration definitely isn't your culprit since it would be trying to load the same OS in either case.  You could first try running the "Fix Boot Problems" utility that's built into the Reflect Rescue environment.  If that doesn't work, can you confirm that these clone drives you're trying to boot from are attached internally rather than via USB?  Windows doesn't support booting from USB drives, and some Reflect users have been unaware of that in the past and have wondered why they can clone to a USB-attached drive just fine but can't boot from it.

+x

 

jphughan - 30 January 2018 12:12 AM

+x

 

JohnnyNeutron - 29 January 2018 11:56 PM

Thanks. The System is running, but 4 years of continuous operation on a Western Digital AV 500GB with no back up is disconcerting. The Images I created appear valid. The ASUS Bios freaks out anytime the Western Digital AV 500GB is not present. It goes straight to a "Operating System Missing, Insert Boot Device or Press F1 to retry."
At some point it may just make more sense to have the Condo Association buy a more modern CCTV computer with documentation and available drivers for supported/modern CCTV cards. I
 think I've dickered with every legacy/Compatibility/Bios mode setting they have. Maybe not the right combination. The only thing I haven't done is say yes to deleting the (PK) Product Key in the Uefi bios secure boot section. I ran Belarc Advisor and copied the Product key to a .txt file in case I get that deep. The legacy Conexant BT878 PCI capture card is 32 bit OS only. ( XP/Vista) it no longer has driver support. I think Eyemax DVR must have a proprietary 32 bit driver running. It's a real Sh*tshow. I dislike inheriting junk. Could there be some other Firmware holding Hardware ID's as a secure system boot deal?

You don't need and definitely don't want to delete keys in the Secure Boot area.  Those keys aren't Windows product keys, but rather cryptographic keys that allow the system to determine whether a particular bootloader is trusted.  If you wipe those out, then you won't be able to use Secure Boot even with OSes that do support it.  All you need to do is disable Secure Boot, not destroy it.

But if I'm understanding correctly, you're saying the ASUS motherboard does boot from the Western Digital drive but will NOT boot from any other drive that was cloned from that working Western Digital drive?  In that case, motherboard configuration definitely isn't your culprit since it would be trying to load the same OS in either case.  You could first try running the "Fix Boot Problems" utility that's built into the Reflect Rescue environment.  If that doesn't work, can you confirm that these clone drives you're trying to boot from are attached internally rather than via USB?  Windows doesn't support booting from USB drives, and some Reflect users have been unaware of that in the past and have wondered why they can clone to a USB-attached drive just fine but can't boot from it.

Right. Yeah Thanks, I've tried it( WD10EZEX 1TB ) internally in place of the Western Digital AV 500GB at SATA-0 and SATA-1 etc. 

Ok, and you're cloning the entire source disk to the destination, not just the C partition?  If so and the clone drive still isn't booting even on the same PC that works fine with the source, I'd start with the Fix Boot Problems option.

+x

 

jphughan - 30 January 2018 12:24 AM

Ok, and you're cloning the entire source disk to the destination, not just the C partition?  If so and the clone drive still isn't booting even on the same PC that works fine with the source, I'd start with the Fix Boot Problems option.

Ok. Tomorrow. Thanks for your help.