While cloning/moving Windows 10 from HDD to SSD, I get error: 0xc000000e

I'm running Windows 10 64-bit on my HP Envy 750-137c. My CPU is an Intel i7 6700, I have 12 GB of RAM, and a 2 TB Seagate 7200 RPM HDD. I've purchased and installed a 240 GB Sandisk SSD Plus in order to boot Windows 10 from it (and store my program files there as well) in order to increase the speed of my system. Although I have the HDD will hold 2 TB, I removed all my games and unnecessary files in order to make the drive contents small enough to fit on the 240 GB SSD. My HDD currently contains a little more than 71 GB of data, so there should be no issue with the target drive being too small.

I purchased this HP Envy 750-137c refurbished, and although it came with Windows 10 (and Office 2013, as well as a few other items of software), I don't have an installation DVD for Windows 10, otherwise I would have just done a clean install of the OS on the SSD. So I looked around online and found that the easiest, most often used method was to clone the HDD and move it to the SSD using third-party migration software.

I installed the SSD and downloaded the Sandisk Dashboard tool, as per the instructions. The Dashboard told me that the drive status was good and the latest version of the firmware was installed. Using Disk Management, I clicked "Create Simple Volume" in order to allocate it so the system would recognize the new SSD. Once this was done, I opened EaseUS Backup Tool - this was the most recommended software to clone/migrate from HDD to SSD. I followed the instructions, choosing C (the 2 TB hard drive with 71 GB of data on it) as the source and E (the newly allocated but empty SSD) as the target. Under Advanced options, I checked the "Optimize for SSD)" box. After I clicked proceed, it notified me that my system had to be restarted to complete the task, and then it restarted. EaseUS ToDo Backup opened (outside the OS - the OS didn't boot) and showed a progress bar with the time elapsed and the estimated time of completion. After this process was done, the system shut itself down. Following the instructions, I then removed the old HDD, expecting the system to start up extremely quickly, as it should have, since I had just moved everything to the SSD.

The Windows logo showed up on a black screen, with a wheel turning, then instead of bringing me to the lock screen (which it should have if the OS had booted up properly) I got a blue screen with the following error message:

Your PC needs to be repaired  

The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or   
contains errors.    

File: \Windows\system32\winload.exe   
Error code: 0xc000000e 

It gave options (not sure why it didn't show them on the image) of "Press F8 for startup" and "Press Enter to retry." Neither option did anything - I pressed F8 several times, then tried F10 in hopes of getting to the boot order, but the screen just flashed briefly whenever I pressed Enter, F8, F10, or Escape, and the blue screen remained. I manually shut the computer down with the power switch, something I don't ever like to do, but there were no other options. Upon powering up again, the same error message was present.

I powered off and plugged the HDD back in (leaving the SSD in place) and it booted normally from the HDD. I used EaseUS Partition Master to delete the partition on the SSD and re-formatted the drive. This time, I wanted to use EaseUS Partition Master to "Migrate OS from HDD to SSD," but the free version won't allow this. So I opened EaseUS ToDo Backup after allocating the (now empty) SSD drive and assigning it a letter, then followed the steps a second time to clone the HHD and move it over to the SSD. After the cloning and transfer was finished, I shut down the machine and removed the HDD again. And again, I got the same error message and had to plug the HDD back in. Now, I'm here on SuperUser, boring you with a small novel about my problem.

Once again, I have no DVD of Windows 10, and as far as I know, my only option is to clone the HDD in order to move Windwows 10 to the SSD in order to use the SSD as the boot disk (that also contains my program files). Before I did any of this (both attempts), I got into the BIOS just to double check my boot order would be fine once I had everything moved to the SSD, and it was as it should be: Legacy boot options (in this order) Hard drive, SATA 0, SATA 2, USB, CD/floppy drive. I don't have an internal CD drive, because I took it out due to the fact that my 700 watt aftermarket PSU wouldn't power it. The HP CD drive had some kind of proprietary connection that only worked with the stock HP PSU. Since I have an aftermarket GPU, I can't use the stock PSU. However, I do have an external USB 3.0 DVD drive that's only plugged in when I need it. Since nothing is booting from a CD/DVD drive anyway, this is a moot point. Anyhow, I looked in the BIOS again once the SSD was installed and allocated, and "SSD" doesn't show up in the BIOS. I don't know if that is an issue as well, but Speccy and Windows Explorer both see the SSD, and the error message only mentions the Windows\system32\winload.exe file. And I'm running the 64-bit version of Windows 10 anyway, so why would a file from the 32-bit system folder even have to be there, much less keep the whole OS from loading?

So I'm stuck here. Ive cloned the HDD twice and moved it to the SSD and gotten the same missing/corrupted file error message both times. And in order to move Windows 10 to SSD with EaseUS ToDo Partition Manager, I believe you have to pay for it. What can I do? I'll have to reformat the SSD again, but can I download an ISO of Windows 10 and make a USB boot drive for a clean install that way? I have the product key, so I should be able to enter that once Windows 10 is installed on the SSD, but I'm not sure if it works that way. There's no way I'm going to buy another copy of Windows 10 to do this, because I already own it. I would really just like to clone the HDD - as I said, it would be easier to move the program files that way. If this isn't possible, I need another way to make this work. Did I format the SSD correctly in the first place to do this? Here is a screenshot of what it looks like after the cloning.

Disk Management: