Disk Signature Collision (4036263)

After cloning a virtual machine (VM) and adding the machines to protection, the clone and original servers inadvertently have the same hard drive signature. This results in either backup or restore errors.

To resolve this issue, complete the following steps.

• From an elevated command prompt, run DISKPART.
• Type List Disk to get the list of disks on the machine.
• Type Select Disk <n>, where <n> is the number of the drive on which the UUID must be changed.
• Type uniqueid disk to get the disk UUID. Export a copy for security purposes.
• Type uniqueid disk ID=<new_uuid>, where <new_uuid> is the new UUID to be assigned to the disk.

Please note that MBR disks can use a 4 byte (dword) hex value, while GPT disks must GUIDs. Simple maintenance practice dictates users modify the current disk signature.

If the aforementioned steps are applied to a system drive, the boot process may be broken. To fix this, complete the following steps.

• Assign a letter to the SRP partition.
• Navigate to the new drive.
• Run bcdboot c:\windows.
• Run bcdedit /enum /V.
• Inspect the boot entries. The entry that displays “device: unknown” must be removed.
• Copy the GUID identifier of that entry.
• Run bcdedit /delete {GUID} to remove it.
• Reboot.