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Cloned disk is not bootable -help!

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My (windows 10) system crashed yesterday and would not boot. I tried everything I knew. I have been making backups using acronis and also making clones though I did not properly test the clone (on a Corsair SSD) and I am finding out that the clone is not bootable. 

Last night I booted from an Acronis Bootable media (I downloaded and copied files to a USB drive) and then ran ATI 2020 off of the USB drive and was able to find recent backups select recover to a new drive. I found and formatted an old SATA SSD and used that as the target drive.

It copied successfully and shut itself down but this morning I awoke and tried the drive selecting it in the BIOS as the boot device however, it does not boot and does not appear to be bootable at all. To be clear, this was made from an Acronis True Image 2020 backup of the entire system drive. Is there a way to make the newly created volume bootable? Or is there another way I can make either this or that clone created before the crash - the one on the Corsair SSD, bootable? 

Any suggestions greatly appreciated,

Thx,

Felix

 

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Felix, what actual partitions are present either for your cloned drive or else in your backup images being used for recovery?

Does this include an EFI System partition to suggest you have a UEFI boot system or not?

When doing the recovery, the Acronis rescue media should be booted using the same BIOS boot mode as used by your Windows OS, see below:

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

Hi there,

Thank you for your prompt reply!

Yes, I think there is an EFI partition on the clone drive (corsair SSD). I think there was anothe r partition on there too, perhaps a recovery partition? I would give exact details but I just dropped the machine at a computer repair specialist.

I have a UEFI boot system. I choose the UEFI partitions on the USB drives to boot into ATI. Regarding the BIOS - I haven't changed any of the settings in it- other than which volume to boot from. 

How can I get the clone drive (Corsair SSD) to be bootable? Do I need to copy restore the drive to original system drive (NVME m.2 drive) and tweak/restore registry files? 

This is my work machine and I would really really like to avoid having to start from scratch installing Windows. I have a ton of applications and software to install. 

Thanks again for your help! I hugely appreciate it.

Thx,

Felix

On a UEFI boot machine you do not set boot order to the disk drive itself, you must set the boot order to Windows Boot Manager in the bios.  Your disk will/should then boot.

Thank you - I apologize if I was not clear. I am familiar with assigning boot device priority in the UEFI Bios. I have mainly been pressing F11 and selecting the bootable media or the usb drive with Windows installation media installed on it. When I select the clone drive as the boot device Windows either doesn’t successfully boot or the repair sequence starts followed by a black screen. 
Perhaps there is a process I am unaware of? What else can I try? 
I really appreciate the help! 
Thank you!

Felix 

Do not use the F11.  F11 is a one time boot menu which you use to launch or boot a device 1 time.  In the Advanced section of your bios setup screen you can find a boot tab or selection form which to set the boot order.  If your machine boot mode is UEFI the Windows Boot Manager must be set as the first device in the boot order there.

Sometimes in some bios one time boot menus Windows Boot Manager will appear however again this will only boot that choice 1 time.  To make that selection permanent you must do so by adjusting the boot order in bios Advanced Setup.

Thankyou. So in future should I set the Windows boot manager (which I am assuming is the Windows Create installation Media installed on a USB drive) to the first slot in the advanced boot options and the drive I want to boot from to the second slot. Is that correct? 
 

I will report back if the computer repair shop has been successful, if not I will have more questions on how to get the clone drive to boot. 

Your assumption is incorrect.  When Windows is installed on a PC with UEFI enabled the installation creates Windows Boot Manager which is saved in the UEFI firmware on the PC.  This in turn reads the boot files on the Windows disk and allows the PC to boot.

Thank you so much. Please forgive my ignorance. What steps do I need to follow to make get my clone (SSD) copied to my original system drive (NVME m.2) and working again? 

much appreciated,

Felix 

Felix,

A closer look at your posted screenshots using a magnifying glass for more detail it appears that on the final step screen your restore or clone will result in a Legacy MBR or BIOS boot disk.  I say this as there is not an EFI or ESP partition listed which is expected for a UEFI boot machine. 

Are you certain your PC boots using UEFI or is it just capable of doing so?  Many machine are capable of booting in both ways.  If you can verify that an EFI or ESP partition exists on your source (original) disk then that would indicate the PC boots using UEFI.  If there is not an EFI or ESP partition then the computer would boot using the old MBR/bios method.

When using the ATI boot/recovery media it is necessary that that media be booted in the proper mode so that an image restore or clone result in the the proper boot method being applied.  There is a chance that the media was booted in the wrong mode which would result in a disk that fails to boot.  Without knowing for certain what method the original source disk used to boot then any instructions are impossible to provide.

I have also purchased Crucial SSD recently, and used Acronis True Image software to clone my old HDD to new SSD. After clone and inserting new SSD my system does not boot. I have tried several online fixes like consistant-boot-mode, secure-boot-disable, bcdboot, bcdedit, bootrec, etc, but nothing worked. I have also tried keeping target installed and source drive connected to USB, but that also did not work. I am not recovering from old acronis backup. I have cloned OS disk and not able to boot after clone with Acronis True Image. I have used other powerful cloning software to clone my os disk from old HDD to new SSD, and system is able boot. The problem is Acronis is not that powerful tool for cloning OS disks.

This is not only my problem. I have seen many people all over the world are suffering from same problem with Acronis. I have noticed number of complaints online about System not being able to boot after cloning with AcronisTrueImage. But Acronis is not at all worried about this real big problem that they have in their software. Until unless you accept this issue and fix it, you may lose customers one by one and market too.

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Ramesh Bondiga wrote:

I have also purchased Crucial SSD recently, and used Acronis True Image software to clone my old HDD to new SSD. After clone and inserting new SSD my system does not boot. I have tried several online fixes like consistant-boot-mode, secure-boot-disable, bcdboot, bcdedit, bootrec, etc, but nothing worked. I have also tried keeping target installed and source drive connected to USB, but that also did not work. I am not recovering from old acronis backup. I have cloned OS disk and not able to boot after clone with Acronis True Image. I have used other powerful cloning software to clone my os disk from old HDD to new SSD, and system is able boot. The problem is Acronis is not that powerful tool for cloning OS disks.

This is not only my problem. I have seen many people all over the world are suffering from same problem with Acronis. I have noticed number of complaints online about System not being able to boot after cloning with AcronisTrueImage. But Acronis is not at all worried about this real big problem that they have in their software. Until unless you accept this issue and fix it, you may lose customers one by one and market too.

Hello Ramesh.

Thanks for feedback.

Without details about how you configured the bootable media and what bootable media, what product do you use it's complicated to know what was wrong.

Support for the Acronis OEM  software is handled through the company whose product contained the Acronis OEM software, as they are best equipped to understand the specific OEM application as well as the relationship between the Acronis software and their product - https://kb.acronis.com/content/2201

We appreciate your feedback anyways and will forward the message to the team.

Thanks.

 

Microsoft does not allow the installation of Windows on USB devices. [The Windows PE/RE environment used by Acronis recovery media is subject to the same restriction.] You need to attach the new drive to either an internal SATA or M.2 port, and then do the clone. The consensus of the advice on this forum is that is better to do a backup and recovery rather than cloning. If you prefer to clone, you should create a backup first.

Once the cloning is completed, you should disconnect the old drive as having two Windows installations can cause havoc.

I suggest you look at the second post (by Steve Smith) in this thread for a comprehensive discussion of this issue