Acronis Clone Disk => Bricked 2 Computers w/ unbootable SSDs --> Need Help (read: Don't use clone feature)
System Summary and Background: Windows 10 Home (1803), i5 CPU, 8GB RAM. Not new to this product or procedure; IT Professional for the past 20 years, having used Acronis close to 100 times for similar task. The goal of this project, use Acronis Clone Disk to migrate from 500GB SSD --> 1TB SSD
Results:
(1) When Using Acronis Rescue Media (USB) on Main Computer to Migrate Data from 500GB --> 1TB Drive ==Result ==> system will not boot from new drive, stuck in Automatic Repair BUT, old drive still worked.
(2) Used Laptop, booted to Acronis Rescue Media, to Migrate from 500GB Drive (attached to [1] usb dock), --> 1TB Drive (attached to [2] usb dock). Transfer completed without reported errors ==Result==> 1TB SSD will not boot on main computer. Additionally, when booting back to the hard drive of my laptop that had no part in any of this (as I used the USB Rescue Media), my own laptop would not boot and suffered from the same "Automitac Repair" cycle of Windows 10 start.
Side note: After several hours of trying every attempt to rebuild boot sector from the console, etc . etc ... I ended up having to install a new hard drive, performed a clean install, and had to start all over.
(3) Upgraded from Acronis True Image to 2019 just to rule out "compatibility" arguments .... and installed on main computer. From the program, I initiated Disk Clone, it rebooted and spent 2 hours performing the transfer (usually takes about 10min from Rescue Media). Program appeared to successfully complete and then automatically rebooted .... and of course ... ==Result==> Now Both SSDs are demonstrating the "Automatic Repair" cycle. So, while at least I could at least have a working desktop for my client, I now have nothing?
ANY AND ALL SUGGESTIONS WELCOME. It almost feels like some compatibility issue with UEFI Boot and Acronis but how and why it is screwing up other drives????


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Steve,
Thanks for the reply -- I've seen you post a lot on here now that I have searched the web.
This being directed towards the company ....
I wish there were big disclaimers about using the clone software and pointing us to use the backup method you shared. Having to come to the forums to receive said advice is not sufficient. I've now wasted hours/days working on this project and not only has the cloning failed but, Acronis corrupted my laptop hard drive (which I was only using as a shell of sorts to complete the clone via two USB Drive Bays and rescue media. It took several hours yesterday reinstalling my OS and all applications and, now my clients computer is not working as Acronis somehow corrupted the original ssd and the new ssd doesn't work as well.
I have tried every method possible, watched youtube videos ad nauseam, to repair boot partitions and instructions and now the system registry is reporting that it is screwed up. The best advice that everyone from Microsoft and on here gleefully gives, "Do a clean install, it is so much better". Sorry -- that doesn't cut it. Acronis should have better answers or stop offering this feature.
So ... can anyone on here give me real advice from experience on at least ... how to get the original drive working which Acronis should not have altered?
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Don, do you have a full disk (or Entire PC) backup image of your computers from before attempting the clone operation?
If so, this would be your best method of recovering your computers for this situation.
You may have read forum topic: [IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this - which was written a while back because of this type of issue with cloning.
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Steve,
Thanks again for your response and information provided.
Again, speaking to Acronis (the company) ....
I think there needs to be a better job of communicating much of what you shared UPFRONT; this, as the only reason people should or usually come to a troubleshooting forum is when they are having an issue after-the-fact. There should not be an expectation that the client, who purchases a software to do a specific task (function as advertised), and who follows the directions as provided by the software, would then also need to come perform hours of research on a user forum to hopefully find the advice you have provided.
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Don, please feel free to submit your comments directly to Acronis via the Feedback tool in the ATI GUI - we have been assured that the feedback is read by someone there!
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Don,
Sorry to hear of your issues with the Clone tool, personally, I have used it many times, both from Recovery Media and from within the installed Windows product and have never had a failure.
I believe that most of your problems could have been avoided had you read the documentation on using the Clone tool from pages 133 through 139. Pages 139 and 140 cover the Backup and Recovery method.
As for you laptop drive that is now problematic, I suggest that you do an in place upgrade of Windows on the drive to bring things back to normal. You will find a guide to doing so HERE
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It may not have anything to do with this reported problem, but I was fighting a similar problem last week with a friends 6 year old Samsung S3 series laptop. (Luckily, I had made a backup of the original Windows 8 HD before the fun began). After upgrading the original drive to windows 10, I cloned it to an SSD. I Installed the SSD, and upon power-on the laptop reported the automatic repair error. Installed the original HD and got the same error, now both the HD & SSD were hosed. I used saved the TI backup to restore original HD, upgraded to win 10 again, and repeated the cloning with same "bricked" results. Not being one to quit, I repeated this a third time with same results. Cloning has been my prime method of backup for years and it just did not occur to me to just do a TI backup to a file (duh), which may have worked. Instead,I found an article with google suggesting that I do a hard power reset before installing the cloned drive. Repeated a 4th time, but this time disconnected power/battery and held power button for 30 seconds prior to installing the cloned SSD, and, to my surprise it booted normally to Windows 10! Installed HD after hard power reset and it also booted normally. Now back to SSD and all is fine. Might be a quirk with this Samsung laptop, but it worked for me.
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William, thank you for sharing your experience in this area of cloning and having hit issues. A hard power reset has got to be worth a try for anyone in this repair situation.
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A hard power reset would have an effect on the hardware of the device in that all attached devices would be reinitialized and device drivers would then be reloaded upon Windows startup.
This makes perfect sense to me.
Question for William, where you running the clone tool while booted into Windows?
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Yes, I performed all cloning via windows. I work on friends/relatives computers as a hobby, and I learned the hard way to make a rescue flash drive and a backup file as first order of business. I booted to flash drive to restore original drive, but worked within windows from there out.
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I believe the clone tool run from within Windows, lets call it "Live" Clone uses the functionality of Windows VSS to perform the clone. I am not familiar with the VSS clone function but knowing a few things about VSS I believe that a snapshot of the source disk is created and the clone is run from that snapshot. This may have an effect on device initialization in that when a new disk in the picture the bios may not be looking in the right location for the boot files thus the failure.
A hard power reset would resolve that issue.
If you start trying to fix the boot files when something like this happens then you will probably end up corrupting things to the point of needing to run an in place upgrade or a clean install. I believe that the UEFI bios has a part in this as well.
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