Problems cloning dedicated FS drive to larger SSD

[McGuirk59]

I was running out of space on my 500GB dedicated Flightsim SSD so I decided to buy a 1TB SSD and clone the first drive over to it. The cloning went without issue and I swapped the new drive into place, added the unallocated space and changed the volume letter to match the original. The drive is seen by windows 11 and I can browse the files normally but when I launch MSFS I get the following message:

“Microsoft Flight Simulator can’t open because it is offline. The storage device might be missing or disconnected.”

Can anybody help?

[MichaMMA]

May be that is helpfull ?

Just cloned HDD to SSD, FS 2020 is not working

I cloned my SSD onto a new larger m.2 drive using macrium reflect free and it wouldn’t work so ran a repair from ms store. From the dialogue boxes, it looked like it was going to do a complete reinstall, but it was all done in a few minutes and worked perfectly immediately after doing this. I can only imagine that there is something in the piracy protection to stop a cloned disk working properly until you have been through this process. I only have MSFS on a 1 TB drive and it’s already half f…

But we have other topics about issues after “clone”. May be you can check in forums search.

PS : I’am so lucky that I nothing bought from that ms-store

[MSFSRonS]

Does it have the same drive letter?

[McGuirk59]

Yes, I gave it the same drive letter. I finally did an uninstall and a reinstall and got it up and running again with one small caveat. I can only launch the game from the MS store. The other main .exe with which the desktop icon is created and which the OS recognizes as an installed app just spins and spins. I tried all the repairs and resets, on the MS app as well as the MS Store and The UIGaming app.

[MSFSRonS]

Try the Xbox App - Manage FS2020

[jujunet37]

May help : I had same issue several month ago when upgrading the CPU, seem that MS invalidate the license when upgrading hardware. I had trouble and used to reinstall the full sim.

But : Now I just upgraded a dedicated SSD from Kingston A2000 500GB to Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB. I will not talk about change the drive letter, that’s an evidence. I’ve always changed the drive letter to match the old intall, that’s not the matter, it seem to be a DRM issue.

So I had the same blue message : offline, disk disconnected, blah blah blah.

Very important : Don’t repair or reset app ! I did it at first and I lost the sim : nothing anymore in applications, and when going into the appstore it resquest an “install” : sim was not detected.
I saw that C:\Users\XXXX\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache was not accessible. LocalCache and other folders this directoty shows as shortcuts, but with invisible target. I’ve tought that the target was in the old SSD…

Contrary the change of the CPU, I had the original copy for revert. When I upgraded the CPU, this was my original copy that I killed by repair and reset.

But as I cloned the drive, I put again the old one and start successfuly the sim. The localCache was accessible but impossible to copy (DRM ???).
Then I put again the new SSD and the sim was again in apps (like before reset and repair…)

Then : I went into the app store and type Flight Simulator in search bar. Look for my version. And saw “Reinstall”, not “Install”, … “Reinstall”, I clicked on it and choose the path made a little download (700MB), and done. Can fly again !

So to be quick : clone your drive, match letter, don’t touch anything and NO REPAIR NO RESET and go to store to reinstall.