How to Fix Cloned Drive Won’t Boot Windows 11 Easily (5 Ways)

User Case

“I bought a 1TB SSD to use. I cloned over everything fine and that’s all good. My laptop is recognizing the drive when it is plugged in through a USB. However, when I take out the old HDD and replace it with the new SSD, I start up my laptop and it says no bootable devices found. So I can’t boot my Windows 11. I have looked Through so many videos and things trying to help but nothing is working. It cost a lot of money and I don’t want to break something. Does anyone know how to help? Thank you very much!”

What should I do when I encounter situation such as this user's? This article will offer you 5 solutions to solve the problem your cloned drive won’t boot Windows 11. You could know common reasons of the issue by reading below and then follow the corresponding method to fix it.

Reasons of Cloned Drive Won’t Boot in Windows 11

Many users want to know what causes the cloned drive won’t boot in windows 11. We have listed some common reasons for you.

• The cloned drive is not the first boot option.
• Partition style is not compatible with boot mode.
• Missed cloning the “system reserved” partition.
• System is corrupted during cloning process.
• GPT/MBR conflict, etc.

Fix Cloned Drive Won’t Boot Windows 11 Easily 

If you encounter the situation your cloned drive fails to boot Windows 11, don't worry, this article will share five useful solutions with you. And you can choose any one of them to solve the problem easily. Detailed graphic tutorials are provided for each method so that even a green hand can learn it quickly.

Method 1. Change the Boot Order of Your Cloned Drive

If the cloned hard drive is not set as the first boot option in the BIOS, your computer will not be able to boot from it. Therefore, you need to access the BIOS and change the boot order to set the hard drive as the boot disk.

1. Restart your computer. As the boot screen appears, keep pressing F2/F12/DEL to enter the BIOS.

2. Select Boot and choose the cloned hard drive as the first boot option.

3. Press F10 to save and exit the BIOS. Then restart the PC to check if it can start successfully.

Method 2. Set the Correct Boot Mode

If the partition style is not compatible with the boot mode, the cloned HDD to SSD won't boot in Windows 11. There are two partition styles: MBR and GPT. MBR works with Legacy boot mode and GPT works with UEFI boot mode. So we need to enter BIOS and set the correct boot mode according to your partition style.

1. Restart your computer and go to BIOS.

2. Choose "Boot" and select "UEFI/BIOS Boot Mode". Then select "Legacy" or "UEFI" according to the partition style.

3. Press F10 to save the settings. Then reboot your computer.

Method 3. Repair Your Computer with Windows RE

Sometimes, if a cloned hard drive won’t boot in Windows 11, you may need to use a repair tool - startup repair. 

1. Boot from the Windows installation disc.

2. Click Next > Repair your computer in the setup interface.

3. Then, select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Repair.

Method 4. Use Bootrec.exe

If the Windows boot repair fails, you can use Bootrec.exe to repair a cloned hard drive won’t boot in Windows 11.

1. Boot from Windows 11 Installation Disc. Then click Repair your computer to get in Windows RE.

2. Select Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.

3. Type the following commands. Each time you type a command, please press Enter.

• bootrec.exe /fixmbr
• bootrec.exe /fixboot
• bootrec.exe /scanos
• bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

Method 5. Try to Clone Disk with a Reliable Disk Cloning Software

Except the above methods, you can also choose a reliable disk cloning software to help you. AOMEI Backupper Professional is a good choice, because it has multiple cloning features, including disk clone, system clone and partition clone. These cloning functions can meet your different needs. As a professional disk cloning software, it has the following advantages as well:

• Support 3 cloning mode, including Intelligent clone, Sector by sector clone, live clone. It allows you to clone only used sectors or all sectors of a disk to another one without any interruption, clone larger HDD to smaller SSD, for example.
• Clone MBR to GPT disk without converting partition style, and vice versa.
• Ensure secure boot after cloning: After cloning the disk, you can boot your computer successfully with the cloned hard drive.
• SSD alignment: It can accelerate the reading and writing speed while you clone a disk to a SSD.
• Multiple HDD/SSD types: It supports various types of HDD (PATA, SATA, SCSI) and SSD (SATA, NVMe, PCIe, M.2, U.2).
• Different systems: It supports Windows 11/10/8/7/XP/Vista, etc.

You can follow the graphic tutorial below to learn how to use this cloning software to clone disk and then boot Windows 11 from the cloned hard drive or SSD.

Step 1. Connect the new hard drive or SSD to your computer. Download AOMEI Backupper Professional, install and open it. Click Clone > Disk Clone.

Note:

Professional edition supports cloning both data disks and systems disks from MBR to MBR/MBR to GPT, or GPT to  GPT/GPT to MBR. If you only want to clone data disks, you can pick the complete free Standard edition.

Step 2. Choose your old HDD as the source disk.

Step 3. Choose your new hard drive or SSD as the destination disk.

Step 4. If your target disk is an SSD, please tick SSD alignment for accelerating the reading and writing speed. Confirm your operations and click Start Clone.

Notes:

• Edit Partitions: You can change the partition size using this feature.
• Sector By Sector Clone: It will clone all sectors, whether they are used or not. And it is generally suitable for cloning to disks of the same or larger size. So you can clone disk to larger disk easily.

Summary

If the cloned drive won’t boot in Windows 11, you can try any of the five methods mentioned in this article. I would rather recommend you to use a reliable disk cloning software - AOMEI Backupper. Using this software you can not only successfully clone disks, but also use it to protect data by backup and restore solutions, including disk backup, file backup, etc. If you want to know more about the software, download and explore it by yourself!