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Clone disk gets error in master boot record

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Hi,

I want to add a larger hard drive to my computer and want to use True Image clone to copy my old drive to a new drive.  I am currently experimenting with an external USB drive as the clone.  I had True Image 10 but the cloned drive would not boot.  It said there was an error in the master boot record.  I upgraded to True Image 2017 but get the same error not matter which clone options I use.  I currently using a 500gb Segate FreeAgent GoFlex connected via USB as the external drive.  The internal drive is 250gb.  

I ran an Acronis system report and, as near as I can tell, disks.txt shows the same MBR values for both old existing internal drive and the external USB drive.

I tried looking at the forums and knowledge base but could not find this specific situation.  There is a LOT of info so I could have easily missed it.  I would very much appreciate it if someone could tell me what I am missing or point me to the correct documentation.

Thanks in advance!

 

**EDIT**  Figured it out...  Windows does not let you boot from a cloned USB drive.  :-(

https://kb.acronis.com/content/56634

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Please search the forum for "Clone" to find the many posts outlining our recommended procedure. For example, we recommend that you clone only after booting from the ATI bootable Rescue Media, not from Windows. Also, it would be equally effective but safer to perform a full disk mode backup and restore it to the new drive, rather than to clone.

I am not a fan of cloning. Cloning is an "all or nothing" process. If something goes wrong, the user may end up with two unbootable drives and loss of data. Backup and recovery is a far safer method, and allows for multiple tries if the user is unfamiliar. Cloning has no advantage over full backup and restore, except a slight time saving at the expense of considerably more risk and complexity.

If you do want to clone, it should be performed only after booting from the ATI bootable Rescue Media. Also, do not allow the PC to boot to Windows with both drives still connected. But, better and safer would be to create a full disk mode backup and restore it to the new drive.

Clone should be used only by advanced users who know what they are doing. It is riskier and can result in a loss of data and a failed system. Create a full disk mode backup and restore it, using the bootable Rescue Media, to the target disk, as it's far safer and simpler.

Thank you for the reply tuttle.  I have figured out why it was not working and noted that in my original post. 

Clone isn't really the issue with that. Windows doesn't normally allow booting from any external HD. But, the fact that you tried means that you booted with both the source drive (internal) and cloned drive (USB) connected, and we strongly advise against that.

Hi tuttle,

I an happy to report that I have accomplished my drive swap.  In the end a sata to sata clone from true image boot media worked first try.  

The process did turn out to be a bit more of an adventure than I would have preferred.  Yesterday I did final full image backups and left the process running for the recovery partition while I hopped over to Micro Center to pick up an extra sata cable.  I had backup set to shut down the computer when it was finished.

When I got back the computer was off.  I proceeded with the hookup for the second drive and then attempted to restart the computer.  All I got was a couple brief flashes on the power button but nothing else.  I checked the power supply and it seems that it had decided to pack up.  So, I went back to Micro Center to get a new power supply; at least I had the case open and the old supply out.

I get back with the new power supply and it seems to be dead too.  Now I’m getting a little worried.  What are the odds that my original supply would quit and the brand new out of the box replacement would be dead on arrival as well?

I went back over to Micro Center first this morning.  They checked and both the old and new power supplies were dead; which was better than the alternative of a fried motherboard or something along those lines.  I picked out a new power supply which they checked before I left.  That one brought my computer back to life and I was then able to easily finish setting up the new drive.

Thanks for your help!

Todd Bailey wrote:
They checked and both the old and new power supplies were dead

Good grief. Sometimes, whatever can go wrong will. When I was fixing up an old house, often a predicted half-hour job would end up an hours-long job and require multiple trips to the hardware store because there was more wrong than initially apparent.

Todd Bailey wrote:
Thanks for your help!

You're welcome.

Regular Poster
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WOW...

I certainly agree with Tuttle...

I have never been a fan of cloning... too many things to go wrong.

I have been a TIH user since TIH2010.  TI has saved my butt and repaired or replaced failed drives with perfect OS and data replacements on many occassions.

Not only am I not a fan of cloning, I have never used it.... never... always used disk and partition image with moving to larger disks, smaller disks, replacement disks and new hardware... Cloning, to me should be a 2 clicker for the novice user and that doesn't always happen and could leave the user in deep poo poo....

Disk imaging and partition images always left me a way back and a way out....

Just my 2 cents.... and I am a TIH fan... for real...saved my bacon many times...

Steve 

In the past I had used Drive Image extensively for managing and cloning disk drives.  I had been using True Image for a while mainly for backups.  I did use True Image to clone a drive from a laptop to a SSD using USB to USB a few years back and that worked fine.  The difference was that I never tried to boot the laptop from the USB drive. I had never actually tried to boot a Windows computer from USB so the no-USB-boot was the piece of the puzzle that I did not have.  However, True Image clone worked fine for the SATA to SATA copy.  As cloning does not destroy the source drive it should be safe to use.

Todd wrote:
 As cloning does not destroy the source drive it should be safe to use.

Todd, be careful about making such assumptions unless you have also made a full disk backup to an external disk drive before starting the clone operation.  

You are correct that cloning should not destroy the source drive - it should not do so, but if cloning is started from within Windows, then Acronis does have to make changes to the source drive in order to create a temporary Linux based OS boot environment from which to launch ATI and perform the clone action.

We recently had a user who did just as above, started a clone from within Windows and has ended up with an unbootable system with no backup to fall back on, and to all intents and purposes, a situation where a reinstall of Windows is most likely the only recovery option because the source drive is not recognised as being validly formatted when connected to a second system.

This is one of the reasons the MVP's will always recommend that cloning should only ever be done using the Acronis Rescue Media, completely outside of Windows, the same as you would need to use for a bare-metal recovery.

I agree with Steve; never clone from within Windows. While in many cases it works without a problem, thing can and do go wrong. I use recovery media for cloning, and only after making a backup in case something goes wrong. This is particularly so if there are prolems with the source drive.

Ian  

Well, yeah, I was not performing the clone from within Windows.  I started the computer using True Image rescue media and cloned from that.  I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I was trying to clone *from* Windows.  That was not the case and I agree it would be a Bad Idea ™.  The "issue" I had was trying to boot using the cloned drive connected via USB after the clone process had finished.

The USB drive I was experimenting with was a Segate Free Agent GoFlex which is a SATA drive with a SATA to USB adapter that plugs into the drive.  Once I found that Windows would not boot from USB I had thought to try plugging that drive directly into the SATA data/power connectors on the computer to see if it would boot that way but was distracted by the power supply FUBAR.  Oh well…

Todd, fully understand your situation here and took on board that you hadn't started the clone from within Windows, was just responding to your earlier comment that clone should be safe to use because it doesn't change the source drive, which is not correct in all circumstances.

The main thing is that this is a learning exercise for most of us users, and the belief that Windows could boot from an external USB drive is a popular misunderstanding in the forums, especially as this is primarily a Microsoft restriction which doesn't always apply to other OS's such as Linux.

Glad that you have this issue all sorted and hope all stays working well for you.

Just an FYI as motherboard behavior can be a real S.O.B. when cloning as well.  I have been working with tech support since yesterday and my Gigabyte motherboard.  After cloning - with recovery media and doing everything to the letter, I have to rest my motherboard to default (usually have to short the CMOS) because my motherboard is smart enough to remember previous drive information in the bios, but not smart enough to realize that the drive informaiton has changed after a proper clone, cold boots, only having the one drive, etc.  Perhaps this is because I'm tring to clone from PCIE NVME to a standard SSD - I'm not sure, but that's what we're trying to figure out.  If all motherboards behaved like this, everyone would be blaming Acronis, but this is definitely a mobo issue with my Gigabyte Gaming3 z170x version 1 mobo and bios 20c.  

Everything is working fine now.  I do appreciate the help I received from Acronis support and here on the forum.

I guess I kind of backed into the boot from USB idea.  I had several USB drives ranging from 500gb to 1tb that I was not really using.  I had used one for True Image backups of the 250gb drive that was in my main computer.  I used to boot SuSE Linux off a USB drive and got the crazy notion to use one of my extra drives for a Windows boot disk; not realizing that Windows would not boot from USB.  Live and learn!

Todd, glad that all is working fine now for you.  Fully understand about the USB drive boot - I had a 1TB USB HDD that I had setup with Pendrive Linux a while back and turned into a multiboot device with various flavours of Linux etc.  All worked fine in doing so except when I forgot it was connected and I found myself booted into Linux instead of Windows, then later when decided to clean the drive, I found I had left it looking still like a bootable device but with nothing to boot into, which caused other problems when I left it connected!  It is a pity that Microsoft won't allow you to boot into Windows from USB devices (apart from their expensive Ultimate Windows 2 Go form) as that would be a great thing to carry your full Windows OS in your pocket on a large capacity USB stick or small pocket hard drive.