Clone disk. Recovery disk doesn't work?

[Anonymous]

As the title says, I've cloned disk that contains 4 partitions in it, all encrypted.
All 3 non-system partitions can be mounted correctly without any hassle, but the Windows partition cannot - it says incorrect password or method or whatever it says there - but I'm 100% sure that I enter correct one and it uses SHA 256 (obviously enough if I can boot in my original one). On boot that cloned disk passes to password entry and then displays "fail windows boot recover it" or something like that, VeraCrypt recovery disk (with cloned HDD only running) says that No bootable partition found on "esc" key and is stuck if I go F8=>recover VeraCrypt bootloader or however that option is called (#3 if I haven't forgot).

And so I have 3 questions:
1) Am I supposed to decrypt system partition before cloning and encrypt it back after???
2 and 3) If I will make RAID 1 in the future it will not work? If it will then how come clonning fail?

Also I have read in the other thread here that I can backup-restore mounted system drive and then use recovery disk - restoring right now and will report back if it will work. Also will try to restore windows bootloader on that cloned disk, will see if that will work, I guess not.

[Anonymous]

Update:
Restore win loader from backup works like a charm and is pretty fast.
With clone I have tried:
->#2 Restore Veracrypt bootloader
->#3 Restore Header
->#2 again
->#4 asked me to decrypt partition (I obviously didn't, because backup already worked so no point in that), didn't work without previous decryption

I guess clone issue might be because the disk is not from the same lineup and same series with same driver, and if all those is needed then it pretty much defeats the purpose. (obviously exact clone on exact physical clone would work, unless veracrypt checks serial number of disk).

And also while I'm here 1 more question:
Will it be possible to clone encrypted partition from HDD to SSD and vice verse? (not talking about system in this particular question).

[Mounir IDRASSI]

How did perform the cloning? Was it from inside Windows?

I suspect that your system partition was cloned from inside Windows, and so it was cloned unencrypted and that's why you couldn't boot using VeraCrypt bootloader but with Windows original bootloader.

If you want to clone system partition in encrypted state, you have to clone it outside Windows, for example by bootong on a cloning CD like clonezilla.

When restoring a cloned Windows, a potential issue can arise if your new drive (hdd or sdd) requires drivers not present on the original Windows. Using compatible hardware is a requirement of cloning/restoring regardless of the use of encryption.

[Anonymous]

I have yet to find a solution that works as actual disaster recovery for encrypted drives. If you just move the data from firmware identical models of the same manufacture and size it can work. But who buys two HDD /SDD "just in case"?

At some point I realized I was spending so much time on trying to figure out a way to clone that I could have just made a fresh OS setup with all installations and customizations instead. This is the way I am going now, pristine OS installation with drivers and my required software installed. Create an image of that and keep it handy for fresh installs. The rest of my data is being imaged at OS runtime (unencrypted) into an image file that resides in a TC/VC container.

When desaster strikes, put image of fresh OS install on drive. Boot. Restore image of the remaining non-OS files into the system. Takes a little bit longer than a single clone recover job, but it's way faster than fresh manual installs of everything.