Skip to main content

Acronis killed my new HD!

Thread needs solution

Using TI 2015, I was trying to clone a HD to a brand new HD, but the operation failed mid-way because the source disk was damaged and could not be read.

Now I can no longer use the new HD - it is not recognized, and when I invoke disk management, I can't initialize it - I get the message that the device is not ready.

Any suggestions?

Attachment Size
hd_initialize.png 94.41 KB
0 Users found this helpful

Paul, this is one of the reasons why many of the MVP's in these forums do not recommend using cloning as it is an 'all or nothing' method.  Using Backup & Restore is a much safer method of achieving the same result, with the added benefit of leaving the source drive untouched in the process.

At this point, I would recommend disconnecting the new HDD and confirming that you are still able to boot from the original source HDD, assuming that when you say "the source disk was damaged and could not be read" that this was only a temporary state rather than a fatal disk error.

If your source disk is unbootable, then the next question is to ask if you have a disk backup of this to use for recovery?

For the new HDD drive, you should be able to recover this by using any disk utilities that the manufacturer may provide, i.e. Seagate provide their Seatools drive utilities, and other disk makers offer their own.

You can try any of the free Partition Manager tools from such as Mini-Tool, Easeus or AOMEI etc which also may offer the option to prepare the drive.

Ok, thanks.. I managed to recover the new drive.. after numerous attempts to mount it, it finally took for some reason.  And fortunately, the hidden partition was successfully copied during the clone attempt (but not the defective C partiton).. so after formatting the remainder of the drive, I was able to boot to the recovery partition and restore to the original factory condition. (the came the LONG process of installing about 1.5 GB of 250 windows updates!!)

Paul, thanks for giving feedback on your progress, glad to hear that you have been able to recover the new drive and get everything working again.

Paul, I hope next time you'll forget about cloning and instead do a full disk backup and restore. It's far safer.

I have to agree with Tuttle.  Clone is nice on paper but can be more trouble than it's worth.  I pretty much only backup/restore as it has been rock solid.  I do clone from time to time, but usually only for testing, and only after taking an offline backup first.  For me the only time I really like cloning is with physical hard drive duplicators/docking stations, which can be pretty convenient, relatively cheap, and a nice addition as another tool that can be used for certain situations.  Even then though, I still always take a backup first :) 

The problem was that this was not my computer.. I friend of mine asked my to help him when his Windows went south.  And like so many others, he had no backup, recovery disks, or anything. Turns out that there was a severe hareware problem with some of the tracks.. I ran GRC's SpinRite on it for 6 weeks straight and it failed to recover the drive. The I tried formatting the C partition, and it crapped out too. So basically, the drive was a write off. My only hope was trying to clone it to a new drive, hoping the cloning would at least copy the recovery partition.  Then the problems started when I could no longer even mount the drive for some reason.  My last hope was to format the entire new drive, order the recovery CDs from Acer and reinstall everything - but as I said originally, I could not even get my system to recognize the drive.

Eventually, I got it to recognize the drive with disk management.. saw that the recovery partition seemed to be intact.. so I formatted the new C partiton and reinstalled it in the Acer computer.. booted up the recovery partiton and reloaded the factory default package. Everything went fine.. then spent days loading about 250 (1.5 TB) of windows updates!

What a hassle!!

btw.. I believe a full disk backup would not copy the recovery partition.. so the new drive would not have it for future protection

Paul Leduc wrote:
My only hope was trying to clone it to a new drive,

You could have backed it up to an external HD, then recovered it to the new drive. That would have been safer. And, if you had done the backup after booting from the ATI Rescue Media, it would have put less risk on the failing drive. If you can clone, you can backup.

Would backup allow me to backup the hidden recovery partition?

And would restore allow me to restore a hidden partition, and also modify the new HD so that I could boot up from the hidden partition if necessary?

Paul, yes, backup should allow you to backup and restore a hidden (factory restore) partition and provided that you also restore the MBR and boot sector that provides the means of access to booting from the hidden partition, then you should be able to boot from it.

If you only restore the hidden partition, then you would need to use a Partition Manager to mark that partition as active and bootable, i.e. such as MiniTool Partition Wizard, Easeus, AOMEI partition managers - all of which offer a free version.

1540: Difference between Backup and Disk Clone

Worth a read. The end result is the same - if you backup an entire disk and restore an entire disk.  Clone has more limitations, offers no safety net in case of an issue and could potentially be done backwards (blank disc cloned to the data disc) if to careful.  Ultimately, it's user preference, but as Tuttle has hammered home, just about all of the MVP's would recommend a backup and restore over a clone, or at a minimum, taking a backup as a precaution before cloning... and always starting a restore or a clone, only with the recovery media.