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Cloning fails with error, original disk will no longer boot

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The system is Toshiba Z930 ultrabook with 500Gb SSD, Windows 7. Updated TI  to 2016 build 6571, ie the latest.  Created Acronis bootable on a new 32Gb Sandisk USB stick. Successfully used this media to clone a 128Gb SSD to a new 250Gb SSD on a different  computer, running Windows 10. So I know the media works fine.

Back to my laptop. Removed existing 500Gb SSD drive, installed it  in USB caddy. Installed brand new 500Gb SSD drive in laptop. Connected old drive and 32G  bootable media, booted Acronis, selected TI2016 64bit,  selected Clone Disk, Automated mode.

I was very careful to select the correct source and destination disk. For several minutes the cloning process went as normal. then an error - Unable to read from disk - so I selected Cancel. This repeated about 5 times, then 'Clone Disk failed'.

I closed down, swapped the disks back, intending to run Check Disk on the original. But it does not boot. It keeps rebooting.

I ran Report generator, which said no system volumes found. I then ran Disk  Director 12, which found the four partitions as before. I tried 'browse files' and all my files appear to be still there.

At this point I thought best to ask advice. Any ideas? Has the MBR gone? What can I do?

 

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Hi Tom007,

Did you remove the second failed clone disk already - just to be sure, before attempting to boot to the original afterwards.  I'm sure the hardware ID's on both are now the same and may have caused an issuei if you did.  If you attempt to boot a PC with both disks connected at the same time (that have the same hardware ID - which may have been generated as soon as the clone started), the bios usually pukes and may corrupt the Windows bootloader on either or both disks because it thinks they're both the same and doesn't know how to handle 2 instances of the same drive when it is looking for the bootloader.

If you have a Windows 7 installer or repair disk, I would try to repair the installation as that should hopefully fix bootloader issues.  Even before then though, you may want to take a disk image backup as a precaution.  As long as you have that, you always have something to try and return to if things get worse before they get better.

In the future, before any clone attempt, I would recommend taking a backup as a precaution.  Clones can be simple when they work, but offer no backup or protection in the event the clone fails and something like this happens.  The clone tutorial recommends taking a backup first too.

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#3565.html

Disk cloning utility

The Clone disk utility allows you to clone your hard disk drive by copying the partitions to another hard disk.

Please read before you start:

  • When you want to clone your system to a higher-capacity hard disk, we recommend that you install the target (new) drive where you plan to use it and the source drive in another location, e.g. in an external USB enclosure. This is especially important for laptops.

     Warning! Your old and new hard drives must work in the same controller mode (for example, IDE or AHCI). Otherwise, your computer will not start from the new hard drive.

     Warning! If you clone a disk with Windows to an external USB hard drive, you will not be able to boot from it. Windows does not support booting from external USB hard drives. Please clone to internal SSD or HDD instead.

  • The Clone disk utility does not support multiboot systems.
  • On program screens, damaged partitions are marked with a red circle and a white cross inside in the upper left corner. Before you start cloning, you should check such disks for errors and correct the errors using the appropriate operating system tools.
  • We strongly recommend that you create a backup of the entire original disk as a safety precaution. It could be your data saver if something goes wrong with your original hard disk during cloning. For information on how to create such a backup see Backing up partitions and disks. After creating the backup, make sure that you validate it.

Thanks for the fast response. I was trying to be extra careful, before upgrading from win7 to win10. buy new disk, clone disk, upgrade clone, check for problems. I did not appreciate the fragile nature of the clone process. Lesson learned, hopefully not the hard way. I will try windows recovery to restore the boot stuff, but have low confidence in that. Can I use Acronis boot media to image the old disk onto the new disk? What is the safest method.

For the record, after the failed clone attempt, I removed both disks (internal disk and external USB case) and reinstalled the original, with no other disk or media connected. Sadly, it failed to boot, as described.

Tom, have you checked your BIOS / UEFI boot settings are still correct to allow your original OS drive to boot?

Some systems require that you select the specific disk drive while others need you to select the Windows Boot Manager instead.

Can I use Acronis boot media to image the old disk onto the new disk? What is the safest method.

Yes.  Use the offline bootable recovery media and do a full disk backup of the original disk.  Save the backup somewhere else (another drive or network share).  Restore the full disk image using the recovery media to the new disk (NOTE:  please see this post about booting the recovery media to match your OS intsall type to ensure a bootable system afterwards - if you have a Legacy installed OS, boot recovery media in legacy mode, if you have a UEFI installed OS, boot the recovery media in UEFI mode). 

Once recovery is complete, I would remove the original, place the recovered drive where the original was, then run the Windows installer or repair disk on that drive and attempt to boot to it afterwrds (leaving the original alone until this is verified to work or not).  If it works, then you can do this on the original as well, if desired.  Once you have one of the disks working, I would take another full offline image of it again so you can just recover straight to it if you need to at some point.

Bobbo, thanks for advice, that sounds like a plan. Will get new ext hard disk (all others nearly full) and take image before proceeding.

Steve, thanks, I'll do backup then try settings.