I bought WinClone 6 to bring my Boot Camp partition from my old iMac to my brand new iMac.
When I try to Restore, I get the “Block Size Issue” dialog saying my Windows will be unbootable. (Who would click ‘Continue’?! 
)
It seems the new iMac uses 4096 block sizes, and the old iMac used 512 block sizes.
But according to the FAQ page the dialog links to, this issue is fixed in WinClone 6… which I am using.
What should I do?
We don’t have the new iMacs yet, but I just went into the apple store and checked the block size on the fusion drives. The SSD is 4096 Physical block size, and the physical drive is 512 byes. I suspect that WInclone is detecting the block size of SSD. Let me investigate a bit and get back to you.
As for why you would click “continue”, block size can be exposed via the interface in USB enclosurs as different from the drive, so you could have a situation where you would click Continue if you know the block size is being presented to the Mac incorrectly.
tim
Thanks for the reply!
If it helps, I’m cloning from an old iMac (Fusion Drive) to a new iMac (2TB SSD). So that might complicate things even further…
In the meantime I think I’m just gonna do a fresh install and copy my files over. But if I can do any research to help you with this, let me know.
We have gotten a couple of these reports, so I went out and got the 2TB 2017 27" 5K iMac to see if I could replicate. However, I didn’t get any of the warnings that you saw. Here is what I did:
Restarted and it booted in to Windows fine.
We have an older 1 TB fusion drive iMac at the office, but I am not sure how it would be all that different. Apple started going to the 4096 Physical Block Size SSDs with the USB-C Macs. So some questions to you:
Also, thanks for creating Transmit and Coda. I use them every day.
tim
I’m running into the exact same problem as Cabel and also sent in a support request asking for clarification on Win 10 Creators update and file-based cloning issues.
Source Machine: iMac 17,1
Destination: iMac 18,3
For reference here’s the diskutil output from the source machine.
/dev/disk0 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *3.0 TB disk0
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage Fusion 2.9 TB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
4: Microsoft Basic Data BOOTCAMP 102.1 GB disk0s4
5: Windows Recovery 471.9 MB disk0s5
/dev/disk1 (internal, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *121.3 GB disk1
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1
2: Apple_CoreStorage Fusion 121.0 GB disk1s2
3: Apple_Boot Boot OS X 134.2 MB disk1s3
/dev/disk2 (internal, virtual):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD +3.0 TB disk2
Logical Volume on disk0s2, disk1s2
735A90A6-F274-4E06-8ACF-DD07742E0D19
Unlocked Encrypted Fusion Drive
/dev/disk3 (external, physical):
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *64.0 GB disk3
1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk3s1
2: Apple_HFS Untitled 63.7 GB disk3s2
Device Identifier: disk0
Device Node: /dev/disk0
Whole: Yes
Part of Whole: disk0
Device / Media Name: APPLE HDD ST3000DM001
Volume Name: Not applicable (no file system)
Mounted: Not applicable (no file system)
File System: None
Content (IOContent): GUID_partition_scheme
OS Can Be Installed: No
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: SATA
SMART Status: Verified
Disk Size: 3.0 TB (3000592982016 Bytes) (exactly 5860533168 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: Not applicable (no file system)
Device Location: Internal
Removable Media: Fixed
Solid State: No
Virtual: No
OS 9 Drivers: No
Low Level Format: Not supported
Device Identifier: disk1
Device Node: /dev/disk1
Whole: Yes
Part of Whole: disk1
Device / Media Name: APPLE SSD SM0128G
Volume Name: Not applicable (no file system)
Mounted: Not applicable (no file system)
File System: None
Content (IOContent): GUID_partition_scheme
OS Can Be Installed: No
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: PCI
SMART Status: Verified
Disk Size: 121.3 GB (121332826112 Bytes) (exactly 236978176 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size: 512 Bytes
Read-Only Media: No
Read-Only Volume: Not applicable (no file system)
Device Location: Internal
Removable Media: Fixed
Solid State: Yes
Virtual: No
OS 9 Drivers: No
Low Level Format: Not supported
Device Location: "SSD"
The physical block size on both your drives is 512, so you shouldn’t have any issue with block size mismatch (unless the prior machine block size was different, which is unlikely). I believe Cabel did not have a 2 TB fusion drive, but rather a 2 TB SSD, which is the reason for the block size mismatch.
Anyways, are you getting the same error message? Does the original machine have an SSD and is the physical block size 512 or 4096? If it is 512, you can switch to block based mode in the preferences and the migration should work fine (regardless of the creators update issue since it doesn’t apply to block based cloning).
tim
Thanks for the response Tim.
The late 2015 iMac is a 3 TB fusion drive with both the SSD and hard drive using 512 blocks. I can double check the block size of the actual Bootcamp partition after work but I’m fairly certain it’s also using 512 byte blocks. The 2017 iMac is a 1 TB SSD with 4096 blocks.
I did get the same error message as Cabel. If you have any suggestions I’d be happy to test them out.
Ah, ok. It now makes sense. If you are not migrating Windows 10 with the Creators update, just de-select the “Use Block Based Imaging” create a new image, and restore on the new iMac. It should work fine.
If you already updated to the Creators update in Windows 10 on the source, it will still restore and boot, but you may have a non-responsive start menu. This may help with that:
tim
This issue has now been resolved. See:
tim
I also see the block size warning and yet WinClone 6.2.1 says it is “Starting up…” anyway and clicking the Cancel button isn’t stopping it. Should I let it proceed or will this end in failure?
I’m trying to clone Windows 10 Boot Camp from my Macmini7,1 to my new iMac18,3. (I gave up waiting for a Mac Mini refresh.) 1 TB SSD drive on both – I thought sticking to the same size would make this easier. I’ve booted the Mac Mini in Target Disk Mode, because that is one of the options listed at https://support.twocanoes.com/hc/en-us/articles/202627785-Creating-an-Image :
"A Mac in Target Disk Mode attached to a host Mac via Firewire or Thunderbolt cable can be a Source for migrating Boot Camp to a Winclone image or directly to the host Mac Boot Camp partition. Winclone will detect the attached Mac’s Boot Camp partition and present it as a Source option. Select the Destination option as usual and proceed with imaging. "
I would like to get Windows 10 up and running on the iMac ASAP so I ordered Winclone 6, created an iMac FAT32 partition a few GB larger than the source, and booted up the Mini in Target Disk Mode. Then this Block Size warning comes up. What will happen?
When I click Quit, Winclone reports “You are currently imaging or restoring. Still Quit?”"
update: So I did quit and am now archiving to image first. I started Thursday night and Friday night “Archiving file data” has reached it looks like 55%. 24 hours for halfway done the archive is a loooong time. And then I have to do the restore. Why does MacOS Migration take 20 minutes and Windows cloning taking two or more days? I’m connected via Thunderbolt to the Mac Mini and archiving to a USB 3.0 drive connected to the iMac.
update #2: looking at the console, it looks like the archiving is stuck at 68%:
|default|22:14:48.939105 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|---|---|---|---|
|default|22:14:49.493568 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:50.064500 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:50.633479 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:51.208925 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:51.796150 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:52.327658 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:52.818362 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:53.377144 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:53.934871 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:54.497318 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
|default|22:14:55.074267 -0400|com.twocanoes.WincloneHelper|Archiving file data: 388 GiB of 564 GiB (68%) done|
update #3: No, GiB are increasing. Just really slowly.
In WIM mode, it does take significantly longer. On physical spinning platter drives, it can take a very long time and we are investigating further. Switching to block-based mode should speed it up significantly (though you won’t be able to restore the image on Macs with a different block size).
tim
update #4: archiving finished Saturday morning, and restoring that archive onto the iMac partition went much faster so I’m now typing from Windows 10.
New questions:
How do I transfer my Windows licence? SOLVED: Microsoft support did it by logging into both new & old PC’s and running command line activation key deactivation.
Kodi, installed via the Windows app store, launched with settings from 6 months ago. How do I get Thursday’s Kodi settings? I’m not ever sure it’s the current version. SOLVED by copying old PC settings manually with USB key. Weird that cloning didn’t pass these over.
There is an extra Generic PnP Monitor in Device Manager – two instead of one. Why? Deleting it and scanning for new hardware brings it back. SOLVED accidentally by using Radeon Eyefinity to group the main and extra monitors into one. No idea why the iMac’s display appears as two halves to Radeon.
New new question:
Thanks for sharing all your solutions! Great info. As for for #4, Sysprep may remove the ghost entries, but it doesn’t sound like it would be worth it.
tim