Fixing boot settings for Windows 8

Currently, I have Windows8 running on a 100GB SSD. I just bought a new 256GB SSD that I want to migrate Windows8 to.

I used EaseUS Todo Backup to do a disk clone to my new drive and it seemed like it worked fine. I restarted my computer, went to the BIOS and changed the boot order, and then started everything up. I tried to then format the old drive to get my 110GB back, but it failed because I had actually booted up the old drive! I unplugged the sata cable to my old drive and sure enough nothing would boot.

After that, I downloaded the Windows8 repair drive thing to my flash drive and tried using bootrec to fix the MBR. Nothing seems to have worked though. Any ideas? This MBR stuff is all new to me fyi.

Also, I want to partition off 60GB of this new drive to create a Linux dual-boot. Should I wait and resize the partition after I get this Windows8 stuff sorted out or should I partition the drive first?

 

I'm sorry to bump this (past my edit time), but I've been playing around with it some more and found relevant info to post.

I found an article online about fixing the MBR, which involved using the bootrec.exe /scanos and bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd commands. I tried that and it failed saying that it could not find my device. Scanos actually said that it found 1 Windows OS, but the odd thing is that there was a ? in the path, like \?\... could that be part of the problem?

 

If you have access to an external drive try using Todo to image your 'old' drive. Then swap the drives and use the Todo bootable CD to restore the image to the new drive. Cloning should have worked, and so should this. Ensure when restoring the image to the new disk that you also restore the MBR.

 

So in the end I struggled with this for a couple more days before giving up and just clean installing. Pretty ridiculous that it's not a smooth operation imo

edit: I forget how to mark this as resolved.