Sorry to hear there wasn't any helpful info in the windows install logs =(

As you have another copy perhaps you could try deleting the hidden recovery partion entirely? I kind of doubt it will do the trick unless there is something rather unique about it but might as well remove whatever possibilities we can, right? If not that, at least, disable the active parition flag on the hidden one now that you have it set on the OS partition...less chances of confusing something that way

Short of that I think re-creating a new disk (ideally with the same hardware in case any activations use that) would be the next best step. Then you could transfer 'only' the OS partition files over to the new one...I'd use DISM to capture and apply it myself but most 3rd party backup and restore softwares might do the trick except that we want to 'forget' or leave behind the original disks partition setup to ensure thats not involved somehow. Sounds similar to your 'data copy' attempt but I think it may run into some issues if you're only using Windows Explorer to Copy and Paste it over. Still, Good Luck!