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Making the Target Self-Bootable
This function is available in the Making the Target Self‑Bootable
dialog box which is invoked by clicking the Make Bootable
button in the Cool Tools tab of the main window.
Making the Target Self-Bootable dialog box
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There are three essential data items on the hard disk that
make the Target Volume self-bootable:
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The Master Boot Record (MBR)
It is the first physical sector of the disk.
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The Boot Sector
It is the first logical sector of the volume (partition).
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The BOOT.INI file
It is a text file stored in the root directory of the
volume. It provides the Boot Menu in the boot
process that specifies the disk number and the partition
number where the boot volume resides.
The purpose of this dialog box is to initialize these
data items in order to equip the Target Volume self-bootable.
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In many cases, the Target volume will become self-bootable
after the first volume clone operation using XXCLONE without
further steps. In such a case, there is no need to use
this feature since all of the three boot control items are
already initialized properly.
However, a re-initialization of a volume that is already
self-bootable does not hurt.
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When the target volume is newly partitioned and formatted,
it is advised that the three boot items be initialized
at least once. You may perform this operation either
before or after the first volume clone operation.
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This function is also useful to repair a volume that has
lost the self-bootability. For example, if you suspect
that any of the elements may have been corrupted by
a computer virus, you may use this function to regain the
self-bootability.
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For a typical (standard Windows default) disk configuration,
it is safe to select all three boot items (check all three).
However, when a third-party boot control tool (such as
Boot Magic) is used, some or all of the boot control items
may be disabled to avoid a conflict with the third-party tool.
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Even without the use of a third-party tool, if you want to
retain full control of the BOOT.INI file in the Target Volume,
you should leave the BOOT.INI selection unchecked.
In such a case, it is your responsibility to properly
initialize the BOOT.INI file.
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When there is only one entry in the boot menu (i.e., one
line in the BOOT.INI file's [Operating Systems] section),
then, the boot process skips the boot menu entirely since
there will be no choice to make in the boot menu.
This characteristic may be exploited if you want to eliminate
the display of the boot menu by removing the lines in the
BOOT.INI file that correspond to unused selections.
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After selecting one or more of the three items, you must
click the Start button in the dialog box in order to
perform the initialization of the selected boot control items
on the Target disk.
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The combination of the three boot control items is
represented by a single numeric parameter (0-7) that
can be used in the parameter of the
/bc:n
switch which can be specified as a command line argument.
When a /BC:n switch is present in the
command line, XXCLONE will initialize the specified boot
control item(s) at the end of a volume clone operation
(after files are copied and the system registry transferred).
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On-Line Manual 
Installation & Activation 
Cool Tools 
Making the Target Self Bootable