Direkt zum Inhalt

Successfully cloned drive, but then had problems booting into clone.

Thread needs solution

I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, an older OCZ ssd, and a newer, larger HyperX ssd. I'm booting with a Gigabyte UEFI DualBIOS. I doubt any of this matters other than Win 7, but I don't have too much computer knowledge.
The story is that I wanted to upgrade my SSD and move my Windows to the larger SSD since the old SSD could hardly hold it. After I was unsuccessful with cloning the old SSD onto the new SSD with Macrium software, I tried the Acronis trial. That worked without a hitch, or so the software said. I explicitly booted into the new SSD via the BIOS and that looked like it worked. (Not sure if relevant, but for the sake of being comprehensive, I noticed after booting into the new SSD, I noticed that the old SSD was still the C drive, but I didn't think too much of it.) So I formatted the old SSD via Manage in My Comp. Goes smoothly.
Then I reboot once more, explicitly into the new SSD, and now the problem arises. It starts Windows, and then sits at the "Preparing your desktop..." screen with the Windows 7 Ultimate logo at the bottom for a minute or two. When it finishes preparing the desktop, it goes to a completely blank desktop with a plain blue background, and I only have a mouse cursor. I can't do anything, not even right click. There's no toolbar or start menu. I find the only thing I can do is ctrl alt del, which does bring me to the usual Win 7 screen. If I bring up the task manager, it comes up in that ancient Windows window, with the plain, ugly grey.
Do I need to start my computer fresh? I'm not afraid of losing any data, just my Windows license. I feel like I just need to unleash the full Windows hidden in my new SSD, like some setting is holding it back, but what do I know...
Not sure if this forum can help me, as the problem is likely not due to Acronis. But worth a shot. Thanks!

0 Users found this helpful

Did you still have both drives attached when you booted to Windows? You should never do that, as Windows doesn't allow two OS drives and will make one unbootable and it may not be the result you want.

This is one of the reasons why we recommend that users do not clone, but instead do a full disk mode backup and then restore that backup to the new drive.

Did you make a full disk mode backup prior to cloning? If so, that may be used to restore you back to where you were before the problem.