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True Image 2020 UEFI disk clone fail, suggestions?

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I don't know if it's the backup software or Dell or Windows, but since I paid for TI, I expect it to work, and I don't expect to jump through knowledge based articles trying random things. Yeah, looking at you Acronis. If your disk clone operation says "Complete" the #$^ disk should boot. I don't think I'm unreasonable.

So, I have a 1TB spinner, and I want to clone it to a 1TB SSD. I have an external docking bay, and Windows 10 Professional shows both devices. I clone old disk to new. Pop the old disk into the system being upgraded - boots. Install the SSD into system - nothing. Hung on the Dell boot logo.

I know the SSD is good - it mounts fine, etc via my docking bay.

Any ideas Acronis? You made me upgrade to the paid version to get the clone tool, but it's not looking too good for you.

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Charles, welcome to these public User Forums.

If you have paid for and upgraded to ATI 2020, then if you want direct Acronis support, then you can open a Support Case with them.  The folks in this forum are other users like yourself.

Some questions:

What type of system are you intending to use the cloned SSD drive in?
Is this a desktop or tower or laptop / tablet PC?

What type of system are you performing the cloning operation on?

How does the target system boot into the Windows OS from the BIOS?

How does the cloning system boot into Windows from the BIOS?

Cloning can and does work fine for many users but can be complicated if you introduce additional hardware not found in the target system or have different boot modes etc.

Please see KB 56634: Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk - and review the step by step guide given there.

Note: the first section of the above KB document directs laptop users to KB 2931: How to clone a laptop hard drive - and has the following paragraph:

It is recommended to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive, as Acronis True Image will apply a bootability fix to the new disk and adjust the boot settings of the target drive to boot from USB. If the new disk is inside the laptop, the boot settings will be automatically adjusted to boot from internal disk. As such, hard disk bays cannot be used for target disks. For example, if you have a target hard disk (i.e. the new disk to which you clone, and from which you intend to boot the machine) in a bay, and not physically inside the laptop, the target hard disk will be unbootable after the cloning.

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

Roger that Steve, I appreciate the feedback.  I understand the official support line but wanted to try here first.  What I don't get is why the disk cloning process is so flaky with UEFI is involved (rhetorical comment).  To answer your questions:

  • The target system is a Dell Inspiron ALL-IN-1.
  • Cloning has been done two ways.  The first way is through a disk duplicator.  No s/w involved.  The second way is using Acronis. For this case, the system running the Acronis software is a laptop using Windows 10 Professional.  The drives are accessed via a USB 3.0 to SATA docking bay.

Interestingly, my laptop does not use UEFI.  Now you've included a special looking note: "It is recommended to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive, ..."  Where did this quote come from?  The KB articles?

This would seem to be my problem.  However, I have two goals with this post - first is to understand *WHY* the drives won't boot.  The second is to get the drive to boot.  It seems ridiculous to me that I have to put a new SSD into the target machine, boot from a USB and clone the old drive into the new.

Can you explain why it is this way?

 

Charles, thanks for the extra information / answers.

The quote about cloning with laptop drives comes from the KB document referenced.

The core issue here is that your Dell Inspiron ALL-IN-1 uses UEFI to boot and therefore expects to find an EFI System partition containing the Windows BCD information telling it how / what to boot.

When you perform cloning on a Legacy laptop from within Windows or using rescue media booted in Legacy mode (default for the laptop), then the source drive will be migrated from UEFI to Legacy (from GPT to MBR) during the clone process but this is doomed to fail.

Acronis have taken the approach that users will use cloning directly on the computer where the target drive will be used, therefore they match the boot mode of the source drive because of that approach.

The only way to override this approach is to be able to boot from the Acronis rescue media in the same boot mode as used on the target system when this is different that the normal boot mode.

The reason for the quote regarding cloning laptop drives is because Acronis tries to adjust the BCD settings to match how the target drive is connected and this will fail on laptops if using an external docking station with a different controller than that in the laptop etc.

To get your new 1TB SSD to boot correctly, you need to clone again preserving the GPT partition mode required by UEFI when booting, so this means booting using the rescue media in UEFI mode if still using the laptop, or else checking what options you have for the Dell Inspiron AIO box, i.e. can you install ATI 2020 on this and use Active Cloning to clone the HDD to SSD with the SSD connected externally to that AIO box?

I just had this same problem. Crucial Ssd cloned fine but wouldn’t boot. Acronis cloning instructions were to attach ssd to USB port. NOT install via sata cable as internal drive, as suggested above (which might be good advice, btw). 

My eventual solution was to change my bios setting from uefi to legacy (cfm or csm?). That failed to boot too, but then when I reset bios back to use uefi, it booted!  Possibly some setting for uefi was erased or corrupted in legacy mode, then windows new how to fix it?  Unclear. One additional clue was that after the first time it booted on ssd, then second cold start showed, and fixed, disk errors. 
 

Nuts. 

Two pictures

 

the legacy boot failure screen

the second boot success, where disk errors were being fixed

Anhang Größe
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Dear Rob McMillan,
Thank you for sharing your experience with the community.