Help with cloning an installation to same drive

[gtgamer468]

So I have copied over every single files and folders with a cloning tool. What I'm trying to do is duplicate my installation (Windows 10) so that I can create a setup of dual booting Windows 10 and the latest version of the Canary build for Windows 11. I'm going through this whole thing to reduce the number of things I need to install when installing Windows 11 while also (and this is the more important bit) be able to run Xbox games installed through the Store in a separate drive in both Windows 10 and 11. The version of Windows 10 I have is 22H2. The issue I'm facing is that the duplicated install is not booting (I have errors with sihost for instance and my install is showing to be in the wrong drive letter).

[Hyoenmadan86]

Most probably your clone image isn't a perfect 1:1 sector copy, or it doesn't save GPT structures/MBR/Volume Bootsector. If your cloning software only stores the files/boot data and then rebuild the rest of FS structures when restoring, it will result in different volume/disk UUIDs, which windows will recognize as new filesystems, moving your drive letter and mount points from place. This happened a lot with Ghost/Acronis/Easeus etc. [censored] when you used "max compression" and "ignore blank sectors". Dunno if these tools still do that. Also "cloning" software which uses the WIM format will do the same thing.

You will have to rebuild your "dosdevices" registry data entries. There are forum tools which allow you to edit that data offline from a recovery environment. You have to assign the C: letter to your system volume. Unless it being in WinPE mode (in which case the volume manager will pick the X: letter for system volume) modern Windowses after XP don't like to run from different drive letter than C: (think of C: as the "root" of windows FS structure). After successful boot, don't forget to clean your mountpoints with built in mountvol command.

[gtgamer468]

Do you know the path to that registry key? I couldn't find where it is.

[Zv45Beta]

DosDevices are located in HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices, though this is quite weird as in my experience, a Win10/11 install will force its system partition/disk to be the C drive