Can't re-clone HD as new HD is active

[PhilC]

Hi, hope this is the right place. 
I decided to replace the HDD in my desktop PC (320GB), to give me more space without needing to attach USB drives and because I felt that the 9 year old drive was probably becoming a bit of a failure risk.  I bought a 1TB drive (HDD rather than SSD).
I tried to clone my C: using Macrium Reflect but it failed due to their being problems with C:.  I moved as many documents to USB sticks etc as I could, to reduce the amount of stuff on there, then I ran CHKDSK, which fixed the problems.  I tried again to clone the disk and was successful.  I changed the boot order to set my new (now E:) drive above C: and restarted.  However, by comparing the size of C: and E: in File Explorer, I could see that it hadn't booted from the new drive, as C: was still my 320GB drive.  I disconnected the 320GB drive and rebooted, to get the message that "a required device isn't connected or can't be accessed.  Error code 0xc000000e" on clicking retry, I got the same error, with the extra info "a required file is missing or contains errors File:\WINDOWS\system 32\winload.exe".  Taking this to mean that something had gone wrong with the Macrium clone, I tried the cloning process again, but it was unable to lock the new drive as it's in use and couldn't proceed to clone.  I tried simply deleting files (which, in hindsight was never going to work) and formatting the drive from a right-click in File Explorer (wouldn't let me).
It seems somehow that even though the PC is booting from the 320GB drive it's using some Windows files from 1TB drive.  Is there a way I can proceed with a re-cloning?  Maybe a better way to wipe the 1TB drive?  If I get that far, does the order of my partitions matter?  In my first try, it would only let me 'expand to fill' the last partition, so I dragged them in the order 1, 2, 4, 3 to permit this.
Could this be why it wouldn't boot from the new disk?  Any help much appreciated.  This is a snapshot of the current partitioning of the two disks as seen in Macrium Reflect.

[Geek-9pm]

you have come to the right place.
There are experts here that can help you with you tasks.

First, there are some important details. You say you old machine is about 9 years old. We need to know the exact make and model. In particular, we need to know more about the BIOS About 9 or ten years ago some very important changes where make int he BIOS of desktop computers.

As a general rule, do not try to make Macrium Reflect do something it ought not do.  Let it do what it knows is best. during t the clone process it will wipe the Target drive .

Please provide the details, then we can proceed.

[PhilC]

Thanks.  It's a Dell Inspiron 545 on 'legacy' BIOS.

[BC_Programmer]

Swapping the partition order likely is why it will not boot.

The procedure for cloning a drive with Macrium, which I've used a number of times with boot drives:

1. Use "Clone This Disk" in Macrium Reflect
2. Use "Select a Disk to Clone to" and choose the target drive

It will populate the set of partitions. You can click a partition and choose "Clone partition properties", I believe, to expand specific partitions. I don't know off-hand the specific procedure and can't go through it now (since I'm not cloning a drive!) but I've cloned to larger boot drives multiple times and seem to have managed to expand the appropriate partition and not the one at the end, which is still 450MB.

3. shut down and completely swap the disks

Eg, I never leave the "source" drive installed in the system and replace it altogether with the cloned copy, so I don't know if that might affect boot attempts.

How are your two drives currently appearing within Disk Management (Start->Run Diskmgmt.msc)?

For starters I would disconnect the 1TB Drive altogether and ensure you can still boot that way. If you can, shut down, connect the 1TB Drive again, and then enter disk management and try to delete all partitions from the 1TB Drive.

Then you can try the clone process again. There is some way to expand specific partitions since I've apparently done it a few times but I can't remember it beyond it having something to do with adjusting the partition properties. in the "clone this disk" dialog.

[PhilC]

Hi, Yes, that's pretty much what I did in Macrium Reflect the first time.  To get them in the right order and expand the third partition (what I now want to do) you add them one at a time and adjust the size of the third one manually before adding the fourth, leaving just the right amount of space to fit in the fourth.  Having figured that out, I now just want to be able to do it!

How are your two drives currently appearing within Disk Management (Start->Run Diskmgmt.msc)?

Like this.  I can't format the 4th partition on the 1TB disk.  I've tried at command prompt, too, with no success.

[Geek-9pm]

You are trying too hard. Let Macrium Reflect  do its job the way it should.
Many here on this forum use Macrium Reflect and find it best to just di it the way they say in the documentation.
This is for version 6 and in general applies to the version 7 release.
http://updates.macrium.com/reflect/v6/user_guide/macrium_reflect_v6_user_guide.pdf
See page 9

Macrium Reflect v6 User Guide  v21 
Copyright © 2017. Paramount Software UK Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Page  9
...
Disk cloning
With Macrium Reflect, you can clone your system disks to enable you to swap failed disks out of your system and get things back up and running again in minutes.
Cloning is often confused with imaging. The process is identical but instead of storing data to a file, it replicates volume contents and disk structures to an alternative device. When the cloning process is complete, the target disk is identical to the original and contains a duplicate of all volumes, files, operating systems and applications.

Try again! 

[PhilC]

Okay, thanks for your patience and advice so far.  I've made a major leap forward: I've succeeded in cloning my disk and booting from it.  I realised that, having left the boot order as 1TB disk then 320GB disk, even though the rubbish partitioning of the 1TB disk meant I couldn't boot from it, my PC was using it enough to prevent Macrium Reflect from overwriting it.  I switched the boot order back to 320GB disk first, so that the 1TB drive wasn't 'engaged' in the same way.  MR was then able to clone on to it!
I've got one more (hopefully minor) obstacle to overcome now.  Being super cautious during the cloning process and not wanting to give Macrium Reflect any excuse to sulk, I've cloned the partitions exactly the same size.  Could someone tell me how I expand the C: partition in Disk Management (never played with this before and don't want to mess things up having got this far)?  Does everything look OK otherwise?  Here's what I'm seeing in Disk Management now.  Right-clicking on C: has 'Extend volume...' greyed out.

[BC_Programmer]

Disk Management can only extend the last partition on a volume. That is why you have to change the partition properties as part of the clone operation.

There are some partition utilities that can resize a partition like this by effectively moving the later partitions to the end of the disk, but I don't recall any free software for that off-hand. Possibly GParted as part of a Linux distribution.

[patio]

Easus Partition Manager works fine for this...there's still a Free Home edition.

[Term_ite]

You probably don't want to go thru the trying cloning process again but if you do go to the Macrium Knowledgebase by clicking the big question mark (help icon) in the upper left corner of the main page. There you can download the full Macrium User Guide. Go to pages 169, 170, & 171 and you'll find easy to follow steps to setting partition sizes while cloning a disk.

[Geek-9pm]

One more thing.

Thee is a small advantage to have your OS on a moderate size partition. Over time Windows will scatter things over a partition. That  eventually leads to slower load times for some programs. So you keep stuff in a smaller area of the disc.

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-reasons-why-you-should-use-more-one-partition-your-pc

The rest of the drive can be using for archives, videos and other stuff apart from the OS itself. Windows 10 allows you to have a library on another partition

[PhilC]

Taking on board Geek-9pm's advice about the OS partition size, together with the fact that I'd got the hang of Macrium Reflect, I decided to redo the cloning process, dragging each sector across one at a time, reducing the OS partition size a bit, leaving me with unallocated space at the right-hand end.  It didn't work!  It claimed there was an Error Code 23 - Data error (cyclic redundancy check).  I ran chkdsk, which found no errors.  I tried again and it failed again.  I went back to doing the 'as is' clone that had been successful previously - it worked.  (I've no idea what I was doing wrong, but anyway...).  I then used EaseUS Partition Master (thanks patio) to reduce the OS's partition and shuffle the last partition along to give me all of the unallocated space at the right-hand end.  It works, and I've disconnected the 320GB drive and it still works.  Thanks to everyone who's got me this far.
Hopefully my final question: am I OK to just follow the default settings to create a Simple New Volume with the unallocated space in Disk Management to use for all my documents etc.?  Any pitfalls?

[Geek-9pm]

Two tools that work good are:
EaseUS Partition Master.   
https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/
 Mini-Tool
https://www.partitionwizard.com/
After you clone a disc, yum can use either  better utilize disk space. It is a rather slow process. I have done i t many  times.

At this point I am not sure about the error you got. In general, you have to clone the whole disc at once to get the boot to work right. The Boot manager has limited ability to guess at the layout of the hard drive. When you move stuff around, the boot manager will lose the correct pointer to a boot  partition entry point.

Macrium Reflect does have a feature to fix boot time errors. You must create a CD/DVD disc for Macrium Reflect and boot from it and find the little thing the will repair the boot menu items. (Works very good on Windows, but not on Linux.)

[PhilC]

Yes, I was impressed by EaseUS Partition Master: it was fairly intuitive and what I wanted to do was problem free.

[Geek-9pm]

Glad to see you like it.

Here is something I want to share with everybody. Having a backup plan is perhaps the most important thing to do with you r personal computer. Unless you do not care at all about anything the write or create.

A backup plan includes an alternative storage area and another device that can get to that area. Cloud storage is one thing, but free space is limited. Having two extra hard drives is my choice. The common 500 GB desktop hard drive is now at the lowest price ever. Even drives that have been in use for years can still have a long life ahead. I have three verified 500 GB drives at hand.

Anybody can search eBay for 500 GB hard drives and ind some that go for $25 or less with free shipping. They are used, but verified by the vendor. E-bay has a return policy that helps reduce fraud.  IMO, having two 500 GB drives is better than having ' just  a single 1 terabyte drive. 

I do understand the logic of baying new. Nevertheless, in my personal experience, buying redundant used stuff works better for me.