spotlight fails to work on cloned drive

[davea]

OK. I just typed "Apple" in the spotlight box and it "typed ahead," a moment later displaying the entire word, and then erasing the word about a half-second later. While waiting for the text to appear, the spinning "progress wheel" to the left in the blue spotlight box is, uh, spinning (what else?).

If I type slowly the individual characters are erased before the rest of the word is typed. So it's doing "something;" just not one would want.

Thanks very much for all. -- Dave