Skip to main content

Making a newly added disk bootable

Thread needs solution

I added a new disk to my system and I want to backup my C drive to it and make it bootable.  My C drive is old and I want to remove it and use the new drive to boot my system..  I see an option to make the new media bootable but I can not check it.  All references I find is about making a CD or thumb drive bootable but not a disk on the same system bootable.

Can I if necessary use the clone option to clone the old drive and will the cloned drive be bootable?  Or is there a better way?

0 Users found this helpful

Roger, you would need to either use the Clone tool or do a backup and restore in order to do what you want, but the key factor that you need to understand, is that the new drive would need to replace the old C: drive by being connected in the same location physically in order to be able to boot successfully.

The only exception to the above is if you are moving from an IDE drive to a SATA drive.

Please see the following KB documents: 56634: Acronis True Image 2016: Cloning Disks which will take you through all the important steps and includes a video tutorial.

See also KB 2711: Transferring a System from IDE to SATA Hard Disk and Vice Versa - this was written for older versions of ATIH but may still be of help if this is what you are trying to do.

Roger, I think you're confusing two different things.  The bootable media creator is for creating a USB or disc for booting into Acronis outside of Windows (this is a bootable media) so that you can take or restore images, or start a clone process outside of Windows.  Once you have this type of bootable media, then you boot to it directly (think of it like a Windows installer disc, but one for Acronis).  From there, you can clone your old drive to the new one (if supported), or take a full disk image of the old one and restore the image to the new one. 

The end result of the clone or a backup/restore of a full disk, is already a bootable hard drive - it's essentially a copy of what you had on the other disk.  The only times the new disk would not be bootable is if you are changing computer systems (different motherboards), or if you need to change the SATA mode in the bios (like if going from and IDE hard drive to a SATA hard drive). In those cases, you may need to also run universal restore to generalize drivers in the OS.  

The key with either cloning or a backup/restore is once the restore or clone is complete and BEFORE ATTEMPTING TO BOOT THE PC INTO WINDOWS, is  remove the old hard drive, move the new hard drive to where the old hard drive was previously connected on the motherboard and then boot up.  That's usually all there is to it since most people are going from SATA drive to SATA drive these days and if you're using the same motherboard, that really makes things simple.

However, if going from IDE to SATA or SATA to PCIE NVME hard drives, or completely changing hardware like a new motherboard, then there's some more work to do in the bios and driver prepwork (like using universal restore to generalize drivers for the hardware change).

Thanks for replies.  I chose the Clone option, my C: drive contains about 500GB of space, but cloning took no more than 30 minutes.  After cloning I used the bios setting to boot from the cloned disk and it worked without removing the original disk.  When I did remove the original C: disk it marked the cloned disk as C: so that I could boot directly withou using bios settings. 

Yes, I wasn't sure about whether the new disk would be bootable so I tried to check the box, but figured out that it is for making an emergency boot CD, USB.  Which I will do.

I haven't had to replace a C: disk in a long time maybe 3 or more years, I remember using the backup and restore option (2011 version) which took much longer than the clone option.  Anyway my system boots faster now with the new disk.

 

 

HI Roger, glad it worked and you now have a faster boot drive too!

As a tale of caution though, try not to boot the OS after a clone when you have both drives installed at bootup.  The Acronis guide specifically states that you should not do this, and that you should remove the original, attach the clone to the original drives SATA connector and then boot to it to validate that it boots.  Although it may not be necessary in every case, having both drives installed can 1) prevent the system from booting and 2) after a clone, they will both have the same hardware ID and can confuse the bios, hence forcing a change to the Windows bootloader and can result in neither drive being bootable as a result.  Sounds like this did not occur, but because it can happen (and has for others), best to avoid that situation entirely.

Regardless of which version disk you boot to, the OS will always be C: on that drive.  If you attach the other drive afterwards, the other drive will always be D: or whatever the next available drive letter is.  If you reverse the disks, the same will occur in reverse too.  You can always only have one C: drive and the booted OS will take that on automatically.