Unable to clone HD to SSD
Build 6613, Windows 7
I am trying to clone a 500GB HD, of which only 160GB have been used to a 250GB SSD as I want to replace the HD with the SSD.
I ran a chkdsk /f /r and everything was ok.
Then I started the clone mode. After I saw a dial turning for an hour (checking the source disk) I stopped the process and started again. Same story. I has been checking the source disk now for 4 hours and nothing is happening.
Did I overlook anything?
Thanks.

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Hans,
You cannot clone to a USB disk.
Cloning is just that, creating a duplicate of one dive to an identical or smaller/larger disk. This is a one step process.
A disk image back up allows you to back up a drive to another destination, (different) like a USB disk, DVD, NAS or other storage resource. You can then restore this image to a new drive. This is a two step process and is more flexible.
This KB article refers to 2014, but the same applies for 2015
** Use boot media if cloning
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Thank you very much for your help. I was not aware of that as the Samsung SSD drive came with software that claims to do just that, clone to the SSD (Samsung Data Migration). As I ran into a problem there I thought the same should be possible with my Acronis.
I'll have a look at your link.
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@shadowsports
The desrciption in your link worked like a charm. Within 1 hour everything was done.
Thank you very much again.
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shadowsports wrote:You cannot clone to a USB disk.
Misleading and in my personal experience wrong statement.
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Hans G. Schnieder wrote:@shadowsports
The desrciption in your link worked like a charm. Within 1 hour everything was done.
Thank you very much again.
You are quite welcome!
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Techland wrote:shadowsports wrote:You cannot clone to a USB disk.Misleading and in my personal experience wrong statement.
Actually, its not. If you review the recommended process, you will see that the clone in a scenario such as this should be performed from a USB connected disk to a target. Not vice versa.
The source drive is removed and connected to a USB adapter, caddy, etc, and the target drive is installed in the original location of the disk you are cloning from. You then remove, and/or disconnect the source disk from the system before booting into the OS for the first time. You will get this same recommendation from any MVP as well as Acronis. This is the preferred method that consistently provides positive results.
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This does not make sense to me. I was able (True Image 2015) to clone to an external USB drive. In fact I cloned my lap top HD to an external SSD drive and then replaced my HD with the SSD drive and it worked.
Following that I also on a bi-weekly basis cloned my lap top drive to an external USB HD drive to keep in case of my lap top drive failed. I could simply then replace my failed drive with the cloned drive and not have to reinstall everything from scratch. I also preferred this as I was able to access the files on the cloned drive directly if needed.
However this last time I tried cloning it failed within a minute of starting the cloning. I selected Clone Drive, selected the source drive (C:), selected the destination drive, clicked on Proceed, clicked on Restart Now. It restarts and the Acronis Loader starts. I see (very briefly) on a CMD window:
No Raid
Reading All Physical Volumes
No Volume Groups Found
No Volume Groups Found
No Volume Groups Found
Then the cloning screen comes up and within a minute or two, I see another CMD screen with a bunch of output strewn across the screen, and at the bottom Creating Report......., but then Report Not Saved, and it reboots to Windows.
It was working! Now it's not. What am I missing?
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I forgot to mention the external drives were basically internal drives in a SATA to USB enclosure. Once I cloned to the SSD drive I removed it from the enclosure and replaced the lap top internal HD.
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Yes, it doesn't make ANY sense. I am doing clones started from Windows 7 via USB2, then USB 3 and ESATA since years and regularly, always to an externally connect SSD. I can easily boot from that clone (via ESATA) without removing the original disk from the system. With the same useful advantages that wasAguru describes.
All this is working as advertised and implemented by Acronis into True Image since many versions.
The statement 'You cannot clone to a USB disk.' seems nonsense. Of course you can, and there is no reason why you should not be able to do so.
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Judging from my experience with True Image I do agree with @shadowsports.
When I tried to clone the HDD to the USB SSD either the process got stuck with Acronis reading the source disk or another time when the program showed 100% finished the Boot Manager was missing on the SSD.
By swapping the disks, which was the intention anyway, the cloning process worked flawlessly.
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Judging from my experience with True Image I do agree with @shadowsports.
When I tried to clone the HDD to the USB SSD either the process got stuck with Acronis reading the source disk or another time when the program showed 100% finished the Boot Manager was missing on the SSD.
By swapping the disks, which was the intention anyway, the cloning process worked flawlessly.
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"You cannot clone to a USB disk"
YES YOU CAN!
As I mentioned in a previous post I used to be able to do this and then it broke. But, after running a CHKDSK /r on my C: drive, Clone is now working again. I clone to a SATA internal drive that I have in a SATA to USB enclosure. It clones both the System Reserved and Local Disk partitions. See the screen shot attached.
The nice thing about this method is that the files on the external drive are all R/W accessible externally via USB (for individual file backup purposes if needed), and if my C: drive ever crashes I can simply remove the (internal) drive from the enclosure and replace the failed drive in my lap top and I'm up and running in a few minutes. No lengthy restore process.
I actually replaced my HD with an SSD by using this process and it worked perfectly.
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