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How to restore broken Win10 after failed clone

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Please be gentle - I have now read all the "never clone" posts but I made a mistake.

I bought an SSD with plan to clone old HDD across to it then format & use HDD as data drive.

 

I used Acronis 2021 to create a full backup of drive and a I made a separate copy of all Docs folder.

I used Acronis 2021 to make bootable backup media.

I plugged in the SSD and started a clone operation from the boot disc to the SSD.  About 6 hours in it hung.  I waited about 30 more hours (to be sure) than had no choice but to exit.  Windows will not boot at all now.

Tried using the Acronis USB I created earlier.  When I tried to launch the tools just got an error message.  When tried to restore from backup, got error message.

Have managed to access Windows 10 recovery console.  Start-up repair fails.  If I use command prompt I find Windows directory now on D: not C: as was at start of the process.  When I try reset PC (keeping files) I get error.

Any suggestions on how to recover a working PC from this mess?  As you can imagine I am not a fan of Acronis at the moment with clone, recovery and restore operations all failing on a 2021 version.  I am not sure where my Windows disc is and would prefer not to have to reinstall my Steam library so keeping files would be a real bonus.

Thanks for any help

 

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David, welcome to these public User Forums.

The first suggestion, assuming that your original source boot HDD drive has not been wiped or overwritten etc, is to shutdown the PC fully, remove all external drives and USB media etc.

Next, try booting into the PC BIOS and check the BIOS Boot settings?

If the PC is a UEFI Boot system, then the boot device should be 'Windows Boot Manager'.
If it is a Legacy Boot system, then it is the HDD by make / model.

If the BIOS settings look to be correct, then try booting into Windows 10 again.

If it fails, then make a note of the error code given if possible, or take a photo of it, assuming it doesn't just flash up then disappear again!

Cloning from your HDD to a SSD should not cause any changes to the HDD source drive but other subsequent recovery actions could, so it is good that you had the foresight to make a full backup of the HDD before starting.

If you are still unable to boot into Windows and the Windows Recovery tools are not helping, then the next step is to use the Acronis USB rescue media, so if you are seeing errors when doing so, we need to know the details of what the error is etc?

Thanks for the tips. 

I am trying now and will post info as I get it. 

Re-booting the system seems to take way longer than I would expect just to access the BIOS.  I have been tapping the DEL key for 5 minutes and just moved onto a blank screen, not the BIOS.  It would be a weird coincidence to get a motherboard failure at the same time as I was doing the clone.  Will keep trying.

David,

I would suggest removing all hard drives to see if the BIOS can be accessed as expected. A problem with the drive rather than a motherboard issue be the cause.

David, I agree with Paul's advise.

A cautionary tail on device connections: 

A few days ago I decided to replace the 10000rpm WD boot drive [SATA 3 but only 150Gb) with an SSD (240Gb) on a decidedly ancient PC - it's age indicated by the Intel Q6600 CPU (quad core). Took the usual precaution of creating a backup. Then, for reasons I cannot remember, decided to do a live clone [thought it low risk as I had a recent backup, and unused SSD drive - minimises risk of live clone; avoids booting into Linux recovery media]. 

The process seemed to work OK, so I shut down the PC, disconnected the old drive, powered up and #$#$$ it booted into the recovery media - panic stations. The I realised that there was a USB stick in the front USB port; removed it and the PC booted correctly. The USB stick which I had used to load some software also had ATI recovery media on it. 

Given the age of the PC you may wonder why I bothered at it only has SATA 2 ports on the motherboard. First off, I forgot that it already had the SATA III 10000rpm HDD in it - I forgot that I had replaced the 160Gb SATA I (one of several seniors moments during the process). But decided to go ahead and see if I could get the PC to boot using a PCIe SATA 3 card - and it did (the card has a Marvel 91xx controller). Makes very big difference in boot time!

Ian

 

Apologies - work is so busy at the moment I am only getting a bit of time to look at my own PC & progress is slow.

Paul, my next step is to remove everything.  Thanks for that advice.  If that looks promising I have a new plan - stop trying to fix the HDD and restore the backup to the SSD then put that into place.  Fingers crossed.

Ian - I feel I could have written that myself.  Just the kind of thing I do.  Believe it or not, when getting down to attach a D-Sub cable to this PC (I was desperate and thinking there might be unavailable graphics card drivers so wanted to connect to the onboard controller just in case), I found that I had left the previous graphics card in place when I upgraded it last time (on-board graphics, 2012 graphics card & 2017 card in same system).  

Once I get this sorted I feel some memory exercises are in order.