Cloned OS boot usb drive not being seen if local computer os is z16 pro lite

i make clones of my builds with clonezilla. as of z15.3 ultimate lite, i was able to plug in those usb flashdrivdes with the working z15 os live clones on it and make changes/updates to it.

i have been testing z16 pro lite to see if i can upgrade my system to the newer os. i am able to use clonezilla to make clones. i'm able to use clonezilla to move those clones to a different computer. but once i make the computer a z16 pro lite computer, when i boot to my bios/uefi, it won't see the live z16 clone anymore. but the clone is good and working because i'm able to clone that out to other machines without any error.

summary: from the bios/uefi menu - clonezilla usb stick is read. i can do the process of cloning, so my live clone of the os is good. i can run the clone process and everything works fine. but the bios/uefi won't boot into to the live os clone. i know the usb ports work. i do a combination of clonezilla in a port and the live clone in a port and switch them around. clonezilla is always read and the live os clone is not. multiple computers this happens the same way.

other things i tried:

i took the original computer that i turned into z16 lite and wasn't letting me boot into the live z16 lite clone and i cloned back z15.3 lite.

then i put in the same z16 lite os clone i'd been trying to access that wasn't being seen, and it worked great (like it has for years)

so the bios/uefi didn't change, which is what i was trying to troubleshoot. and the live clone of z16 lite didn't change. the only thing that changed was the local os on the computer i was testing with. and it's not just that computers. i did this process with 3 other computers. 1 of the same type and 1 different model and the same things is going on.

i'm stumped.

i know i'm probably going to get a lot of - you don't need to do it this way feedback, but i do. i have a master clone that i have a changelog with and i keep that 1 clone updated and constantly tweaked and then i make duplicate copies of that usb drive to bring into the field. so i need to be able to boot to that clone to make my changes. that's my workflow. i'm not asking for a new way to do this. this way works fine in z15. and as long as the machine i'm using is a z15 lite machine, the clone of z16 even works fine. it's when they are both on z16.

i also guess that the other feedback i might get is - just leave 1 machine on z15 to do this.

if i move my system to z16, then i want to have everything on z16. i carry the live clone in my pocket so i can update it in the field, at home or in my workshop. so i'd have to keep a bunch of computers back in z15 and what's the point of moving to z16 if i have to do that.

so i'm not looking for workarounds, i'm trying to get to the bottom of what's going on with this issue, for why this might be happening and if there might be a fix for it. i have a bunch of guys trained to do it the way described above with duplicate drives of the clone i have in my pocket. so this is the workflow i want to continue, and should be simple like it has been for years.

This seems similar to persistence working on Z15 boot USB's but not Z16 boot USB's.
But that maybe just a coincidence regarding your problem.

i can boot to the cloned z16 os - as long as i am on a z15 computer. once i make that computer a z16 computer from that cloned os, then the next time i start the computer, it does not recognize (only) the usb boot drive of z16 that i just clone on to it.

but i can still see a bootable usb drive of clonezilla. i can still boot to the zorin installer. and i can still boot to my z15 clone. that's why it's so weird. it doesn't seem like a tpm or legacy boot or secure boot or any bios/uefi problems because all other bootable drives work. and the bios/uefi doesn't change when i clone the os or install any os.

and i can clone or install back and forth from z15 to z16 and it's the same every time.

z15 computer:
boot to clonezilla
boot to zorin installer
boot to z15 cloned os
boot to z16 cloned os

z16 computers:
boot to clonezilla
boot to zorin installer
boot to z15 cloned os
WON't boot to z16 cloned os

and even if it's a z16 computer, i can use clonezilla and clone my bootable z16 to that computer (2 computers of the same model and 1 different model tested) so the computer recognizes that it's a good drive/os, it just won't let me boot it.

so if one might be thinking that it could be clonezilla making the bootable drive, all drives i've ever made (maybe for 6 years - 100s, maybe a thousand cloned usb drives) with clonezilla have worked. and again, the clone of z16 is bootable in the z15 computer, so i can verify that it's a good clone. it's also verified that it's a good clone when i take that cloned os and clone it over the existing z16 computer and that computer boots with no problem after the clone. one would think that if it was a boot flag or something in the boot portion of the os, then cloning the z16 drive wouldn't work on the new computer.

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