How to run a cloned SSD of my Win11 PC as a VM to verify it works properly?

Hello,
    
    First off, let me say that I am new to the world of VMs.   I'm a long time user of many Windows versions for home use, and also AIX & Linux at work.

I recently created a clone of my Windows 11 PC using R-drive image software.   This ran successfully and so I now have a fully bootable clone / replica of my Win11 OS drive on a new NVMe SSD.

My goal is (seemingly) simple, however, I've had a very difficult time trying to figure out exactly how to accomplish it.   Normally, I would just turn off my computer and unplug everything and just replace &  install the newly cloned SSD into my machine and boot it up.   However, since my current Win11 OS SSD is working fine,  my idea is to keep this cloned SSD as a full backup of my machine and its OS drive.   I plan to re-clone the OS drive every few months to keep the backup fresh.

Since I do not (currently) plan to install the newly cloned SSD in my machine,  I would like to confirm that it is bootable and works as I expect it should.

Hence, I want to be able to "virtual boot"  this cloned SSD , which is attached to my main PC via a USB enclosure,  and verify that it boots and runs Windows as expected.

Is this possible?  I assume it should be, using VM software.
 

I realize there are various popular VM software available - like VirtualBox, VMware Workstation, and Hyper-V. I chose VirtualBox since it's free and open source. I tried to use this software to run the aforementioned USB attached SSD as a VM but could find no way to do that.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks.
 

My advice would be to forget about cloning drives...and simply use a reliable 3d-party backup program, such as Macrium Reflect.  You may make and save as many backups as you like and restore any one of them anytime.  If you want to "test" any backup...simply restore it and boot it.

Louis

Thanks for the reply.  I've actually used Macrium many times in the past, usually to clone an OS hard drive to a new SSD and replace the OS drive with the new SSD as an upgrade.   That worked for me many times in the past over the years. 
In the case we're talking about here, I tried using MR again, but this time it failed miserably.   It ran into some CRC read errors on my C drive.   Even when I updated the MR settings to ignore such errors and ran again, it still failed (same errors).   That's when I tried R-drive image for the clone, and it worked  (still had the read errors, but it did ignore them as I requested it to).
I believe my C drive (Samsung 970 EVO SSD) is OK.   I ran chkdsk on it, and it showed no errors.  I do see 83 CRC "integrity" errors from the SMART info using CrystalDisk info,  however, that number has been static for a long time,  so it makes me think that the drive is healthy and those CRC problems are not a long term issue (hopefully).

I hear your advice,   but I still would like a suggestion on how to make this work.   It would seem there must be a way to do it.   Someone out there must have done this before, and hopefully can offer up a solution.

Hi,

The copy/clone is tied to your hardware, there is no other way to properly test. You must do what you said:

 

Normally, I would just turn off my computer and unplug everything and just replace &  install the newly cloned SSD into my machine and boot it up.

Virtual Machines use Virtual Hardware, if you boot a Windows clone it will no see the hardware of your computer and will start to detect and install new hardware. Sometimes the boot process fails completely because it loads drivers for hardware that is not present.

Another thing that you must avoid is to let Windows boot and see both SSD's, because the Disk and partitions will have the same ID's and this also creates problems...

Thanks for the reply..   your arguments sound reasonable.   However, Macrium Software (who of course make Macrium Reflect) offers this:

https://www.macrium.com/viboot

And the key feature of viBoot is, as they state:

"At a minimum, viBoot enables you to boot into the images you have made using Macrium Reflect, for validation purposes, or to retrieve data from old applications stored on a bootable image. "

That is precisely what I want to be able to do.

However, in my case, I did not (well, could not to be more accurate) use Macrium Reflect (MR) to clone my OS drive .. for the reasons I mentioned in a previous post.

For that reason, I used an alternative to do the clone, and that was R-drive Image software as I mentioned before.

So, I guess another way to ask the question here is -- is there a generic alternative to Macrium viBoot software?

Thanks in advance.
 

Hi,

Those tools will remove all the specific information related to Drivers that are bound to the hardware of the machine and inject the needed drivers for the VM.

This is fine, for example, to recover from a dead machine, for testing, etc., but after the changes, the image is not in a state to restore on the original machine and immediately have everything ready for use. Windows will have to detect and install all of the machine's hardware drivers, if this fails you will need to install them manually.

Hi, and thanks again for the reply.
It makes sense what you're saying about a tool like viBoot removing specific information related to Drivers that are bound to the hardware of the machine.

To me, that would be OK I think, since my goal is to simply test (ie, get a "warm fuzzy" so to speak) that the clone / backup actually works and will boot on that original machine.  My goal is to run a full clone every few months or so of my C: drive onto the same (backup) SSD I have.   That way, I have a full backup of my C / OS drive should catastrophe strike on my main W11 machine.   Granted, it may be a couple months old at the time, but that is OK with me since I do regular backups of the most important files (separately).  Hence, I can get those back quickly, even if the rest of the image is a couple months old.
 

The whole idea is to do a quick and dirty test of the newly cloned SSD (OS backup) each time I run a new clone backup,  just to be sure it is good and will actually boot.   That's why  I want a software solution, like viBoot to do this testing, rather than having to turn off the machine, unplug everything, install the new SSD, etc.  - all just to verify the clone is good.

Clearly, if I had been able to use Macrium to do the job, I would have done that - and also used viBoot on the cloned disk for the aforementioned testing I desire.

However, Macrium is a major fail on my Samsung 970 EVO due to the CRC errors I talked about,  and MR's total inability to properly handle those (inconsequential) CRC read errors.
MR is pathetic in this regard.   I've now tried 2 competing tools, and both of them successfully cloned that same C drive.

Hence, I'm still looking for some kind of generic way / solution to mimic what Macrium viBoot can do within the Macrium Reflect ecosphere.   I've yet to find such a solution.  
I imagine that there must be a way to do it...............

Anyone out there have any suggestions, I'm open to them.
Thanks.

 

Hi,

Not sure you realize that to use viBoot you must have a Backup Image and not a Backup Clone!

The Clone option makes more sense if the objective is to replace one drive with the other, for other cases the recommended option is to use Backup Images.

The backup images can be restored to a different machine using tools/options like viBoot, Universal Restore available on many backup tools.

Hello, and thanks for that clarification.   Maybe I should rethink my approach.   As "hamluis" said in his first reply to this post.   Now I understand this better, thanks to you.

I was always familiar with a backup "clone", and how easy it is to recover with one of those - just drop it in the system and go - back up and running immediately.

I need to understand more about "Backup Images" like you referenced,  and how I'd be able to recover my system when using one of those instead of a backup clone.   I'll definitely do more research on that.

Much thanks for the info!    Take care & God Bless.

However, Macrium is a major fail on my Samsung 970 EVO due to the CRC errors I talked about,  and MR's total inability to properly handle those (inconsequential) CRC read errors.
MR is pathetic in this regard.   I've now tried 2 competing tools, and both of them successfully cloned that same C drive.

Can you share the name of the other tool that successfully did the clone for you?

I'm asking because sometimes I have to deal with this problem, trying to salvage a bad HDD and so far the only tool that hasn't aborted the process and tried to do the Backup Image or Clone was Symantec Ghost (now from Broadcom). Sometimes the result is good and the system starts, other times it is not because the corruption is very serious.

Edited by SleepyDude, 27 March 2024 - 09:46 AM.

Sure, I've successfully used both of these tools to do the cloning process on my Samsung 970 EVO SSD OS drive.  This drive is the one that Macrium Reflect could not handle.  It choked on the clone process and did not finish (even after updating the settings to tell it to ignore read errors, it still failed).   

These 2 tools both worked for me, where MR failed miserably.   They both finished the cloning process successfully....

- R-drive Image 
https://www.drive-image.com/

- Acronis True Image WD Edition 
https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/detailweb/a_id/6550/~/install-and-uninstall-acronis-true-image-for-western-digital-on-windows

I've been meaning to try this tool as well,  but have not gotten to it yet.   It seems to have good reviews, and there is a free version.   I hope to try this one in the future.  It could be worth a try at least.
https://www.diskgenius.com/free.php