Restored successfully, but my computer won't boot
The SSD drive on my Lenovo T450s (running Windows 10) died so I purchased a new one. The new drive is an equivalent SSD, just larger. I booted to an AOMEI boot drive, ran the restore option and restored a system image I had stored on an external hard drive. Everything went fine with no errors, and the software reported that the restore was successful.
However, the computer won't boot. I get a black screen with just a blinking cursor.
Since I first did the restore using the universal restore option, I tried it again without checking that box. But I get the same blinking cursor result. It appears that Windows doesn't know where to find the boot info on the new drive, but I can't figure out how to fix it.
Can anybody provide some guidance in fixing this? Thanks.
However, the computer won't boot. I get a black screen with just a blinking cursor.
Since I first did the restore using the universal restore option, I tried it again without checking that box. But I get the same blinking cursor result. It appears that Windows doesn't know where to find the boot info on the new drive, but I can't figure out how to fix it.
Can anybody provide some guidance in fixing this? Thanks.
Comments
B.t.w. I never had the problem Chris described. I even tested this week 10 Restores in different scenario's. They all went well. As fas as I understand Drive letters are not assigned by Aomei but by Windows at first boot when restored on other disk or through the registry if restored on the same disk.
It it takes a long time to restore the image, but I guess I'll try it overnight. If it doesn't work is there something else that could be the problem?
New disk and old disk must have the same style.
My BIOS is set to boot legacy mode first
legacy is BIOS/MBR. Can your BIOS boot legacy first and UEFI second? I've never seen those. My computer is either legacy or UEFI.
Note that when booted from DVD or USB the OS is on that DVD/USB disk and all other disks are seen as data disks.
I agree that changing the drive letters in Diskpart seems to have no durable effect. Any changes I make don't seem to get permanently assigned, and they revert when I boot back with the bootable media.
Then I would try to install Windows 10 again on a Cleaned SSD (with Diskpart). This gives you a clean system and C partition. Next you can try to restore only the C partition of the backup onto the fresh C partition, resulting in new system + old C partition. See if that boots.
Or, divide your SSD in two partitions: C. fresh install of Win10, D. restore of only the C partition of the backup
Then in new Win10, create a dual boot menu with EasyBCD by adding the OS on D to the boot menu. Boot and choose the restored OS. Normally it should boot unless your backup is broken.
Select No if you want to restore only 1 partition: Next you can select the partition and the destination.
Untill now you always selected Yes, right?