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I used dd to write the SystemRescue ( https://www.system-rescue.org/ ) image to a USB stick drive. I used this USB stick to boot into Computer#1 and then used dd to clone the internal system drive to a second USB stick. I didn't have any problems.

I put the SystemRescue USB stick into Computer#2 and successfully booted into SystemRescue Linux. (There is nothing wrong with either computer, but I am using SystemRescue live Linux distro because as I understand it is inadvisable or impossible to attempt to make a raw binary clone of a drive with a presently mounted filesystem.)

My plan was to clone the internal system drive of Computer#2, which has Windows 11 installed, to a third USB stick (as a backup in case I want to restore it later), and then clone what I had previously cloned to the second USB stick to the internal system drive of Computer#2, overwriting Windows 11. All of this would be accomplished with dd via the SystemRescue live Linux distro.

The problem I am having is that I cannot complete the steps mentioned in the immediately preceding paragraph because the internal drive of Computer#2 that has Windows 11 on it does not show up when I type lsblk. I also tried lsblk -a. I also tried turning off Windows 11 Fast Startup in case that might be causing problems. I still can't get the drive to show in the lsblk list. (I did not attempt to mount anything because as I understand I do not need to if I am doing a raw binary copy with dd.) lsblk does show a second internal drive of Computer#2, but it's not the right one (it's 512GB instead of the 256GB drive that Win11 is on). The computer has two internal drives: the first of them is an SSD with Windows 11, and the other is an old-style HDD; but lsblk only shows the 2nd one. (lsblk also lists a 32GB USB stick, but Win11 is definitely not on there.)

I know that the Windows 11 drive is functional because I can still boot into Windows 11. The Windows drive is listed as "NVMe INTEL" by Windows system info; it's 256GB. There is also a 2nd internal drive that's 512GB, "TOSHIBA".

During the boot of SystemRescue on Computer #2, it shows the message: "A start job is running for /dev/tpmrm0", which times out after 90 seconds. But other than that the boot seems normal.

Computer #2 is an old Dell computer, OptiPlex 3050, Intel Core i5, 7th gen. The Linux distro on the USB stick is "systemrescue-11.03-amd64.iso". Is it a problem with drivers? Or a problem with Windows DRM? Would I have better luck using a different Linux distribution? I just need something that can see the drive and run dd. I need to be able to type something for the dd parameter if=, so it's problematic that lsblk won't list the name of the device, "/dev/???".

lsblk -a -o name,label,size,fstype,model loop0 854M squashfs sda 465G TOSHIBA

Update: The comment from @frostschutz told me to check dmesg, where I found some messages that said that I should change from RAID to AHCI in the BIOS settings. After I did that, the drive now shows up as "nvme0n1".

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    Please edit your question and show us the actual command output. It is very hard to follow when you describe the output but don't show it. Are you sure you're not confusing drives_with _partitions here? Commented Feb 15 at 13:28
  • @terdon It is difficult to do this because I am typing on Computer#1 and Computer#2 does not have Internet. I used the "copytoram" option for SystemRescue and I removed the USB stick. I typed lsblk -a -o name,label,size,fstype,model, which results in 3 lines of output, one of which is a header row. I don't see how it adds much to my question, but I will edit my question and manually type the other two rows. Commented Feb 15 at 13:52
  • Even a screenshot would be helpful. Take a picture using your phone. As an aside, you don't need to mess around with dd which is very hard to use and easy to get wrong. See dd vs cat -- is dd still relevant these days?. Commented Feb 15 at 13:55
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    @frostschutz In dmesg I found a couple of lines that said "Found 1 remapped NVMe devices", "Switch your BIOS from RAID to AHCI mode to use them". I am going to try that, and report back whether it corrects the problem. Commented Feb 15 at 15:14
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    You cannot move Windows from one computer to another. Product key now in UEFI/BIOS support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/… Dell replaced Motherboard on my laptop. They must not have updated product key. Dual boot install of Kubuntu worked, but Windows nor any Windows repairs worked. Only fix was the Dell image which restored system to as purchased, but erased my Kubuntu. But Kubuntu was a copy of desktop so no real loss. Use external SSD no which is another copy of desktop. Commented Feb 15 at 16:03

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