Bootcamp migration with 16-Inch MacBook Pro

Hi, I’m struggling to migrate the bootcamp partition (Windows 10 Pro) which is using 100GB of internal storage, to an external SSD (Samsung T5, also tried a Samsung 860 Evo).

I have done the following;

Formatted the destination SSD as ExFAT with MacOS Disk Utility.

Created an image of the internal Bootcamp partition using Winclone.

Restored this image to the ExFAT formatted SSD. (At which point, Winclone formats it to NTFS, or the whichever format it prefers, I’m not in front of my computer to check right now)

I inject the Apple SSD driver from the menu bar in Winclone

I make EFI bootable from the menu bar in Winclone.

I followed the instructions to make a windows install disk, by copying the contents of the Windows install ISO to an SD card, preparing it as per the instructions I saw on the TwoCanoes site.

When I turn on holding option and boot from ‘EFI Boot’, it shows the windows logo, then restarts and boots to MacOS every time.

When I boot from the windows install SD card, I can get to the select language screen (first window of the windows installer), but the keyboard / mouse doesn’t work, including the external wired ones.

I’m not sure why the winclone restored bootcamp image on the SSD doesn’t just boot and work though, given it’s being run on the exact machine it was cloned from. The only thing I can see there’s changed is that the Windows OS is located on the external SSD, but running on the same computer. When I boot from the internal bootcamp partition, it just works and finds all of the drivers it needs to do so.

Is there something I’m missing?

I want to get windows 10 booting from the external SSD so I can remove it and free-up 100GB of storage space on my new MacBook Pro

Thanks,

Ryan