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Destination disk disappears with Cloning Error

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I Booted Win 8.1 PC using Acronis Bootable Media (CD).
Ran ATI 2014 and attempted to clone C: drive.
Cloning process progressed through selecting source and destination drives, but after clicking "proceed", Cloning Failed message appeared and .
Rebooted PC normally; destination drive is no longer visible in Windows File Explorer (This PC).
Destination drive is visible under Computer Management|Storage|Disk Management but disk letter and name are missing; Change Drive Letter and Paths ... (and other Rt click commands) are grayed out.
I repeated all of the above with a new destination drive with the same result: ATI cloning failed and the new destination drive became invisible. So now there are two problems: 1. How to restore the dives that seem to have been made invisible by ATI and then 2. How to do a clone.

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You might try this, just enter the problem drive letter in place of (external drive letter). It sounds like the error that occured somehow made you loose ownership of the drive. This is a part of Win 8, 8.1 security and the example below should restore ownership.

To fix this, you can follow these steps: 
1. Click Start , click All programs , and click Accessories . 
2. Right-click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator .
3. In Administrator: Command Prompt window, 
4. Type 
takeown /F (external drive letter) and press Enter.
5. Type 
CACLS (external drive letter) /G Administrator:F  and press Enter.

Note: Administrator can be changed to your local user account with the administrator permission

7. Restart the computer and test the issue.

Source: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7security/thread/a534… might try this:

Thanks for suggestion Bob, but it did not work for me. My drive letters through J are visible; dives K and L are hidden. takeown /F K (or takeown /F K: or takeown /F K:*, or takeown /F (other letters) all respond: ERROR: The system cannot find the file specified.
(BTW, the link you cite is broken.)

Always do the clone or restore operation from the Acronis recovery CD. Does this solve your issue?

Jim,

Sorry to hear the suggestion failed, are you certain you were using an elevated command prompt? I take it that drive letters K and L being hidden are associated with the effected drives? Have you tried accesing used drive letters in an elevated command prompt window including K and L?

Are you cloning from smaller drive to larger drive? Where either of the drives in question formatted prior to your attempt to clone? If yes were they formated as GPT or MBR disks? Was Win 8 pre-installed on the. PC?

I stlll think your issue is Win 8 security issue and ownership is the root problem. Have you tried searching microsfts support for those issues?/p>

I attempted cloning twice, once directly from the application and a second time using Acronis recovery CD and a different destination drive. Both attempts failed. Both attempts caused the destination CD to "hide".

I attempted to run takeown via an elevated command prompt (just tried again with same result: ERROR: The system cannot find the file specified).

The PC is a stock HP desktop with 64 bit Win 8 pre-installed, since updated to Win 8.1, which seems to operate normally. The C: drive is a 234 GB SSD (218 GB formatted capacity). The hidden destination drives were previously NTFS formatted. One of the destination drives that became hidden previously contained a windows recovery image; the other one just had data. In both cases the destination drives, which were USB-connected, were larger than the C drive that I hoped to clone, and the C drive was less than half full.

Per Bob's suggestion, I will continue to look for a security/ownership explanation for the hidden disk issue.

Thanks again for you input.

Jim Gregory

Jim,

Are you familiar with the Windows tool Diskpart? This tool is found on install disks and some Windows installations. It is a a part of the developer level tool set. Let me know.

Bob,
I am unfamiliar with Diskpart and it is not present in my Win8.1 installation.
Since my last post, I've come up with a work-around. Physically moving the hidden USB drive to a Win 7 PC and running an older version of the Acronis clone application, the drive can now be seen when moved back to the Win 8.1 machine! It would still be nice to know how to do this more directly.
The original problem occurred when the current version of Acronis True Image 2014 failed shortly after initiating the clone request leaving the destination drive hidden. I have asked Acronis if they know how to fix this problem and await their answer.
Thanks for your help.
Jim Gregory

Jim,

Found this link on a microsoft blog site. When you indicated that your disappearing HDD's were USB connected, that changes things significantly. I had assumed your drives were connected internally.

I believe this link might well bring resolution to your issue. Post back with your results.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/usbcoreblog/archive/2013/11/01/help-after-insta…

Also check this link as it is closely related to the above.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2900614

My original issue was that I could not clone my C drive using Acronis True Image 2014 (ATI). Trying to clone via the ATI windows interface or via back-up media would fail soon after starting and the target drive disappeared from Windows Explorer.
Fortunately, the hidden drive was visible in Disk Management where it showed up as "unallocated". A quick reformat of the target drive restored the disk to Windows Explorer..
Clone problem: Acronis tech support provided this explanation, "disk cloning cannot be performed on GPT disks. The cloning operation is possible only on basic MBR disks." My C drive is a GPT SSD.
My objective was to use a cloned C: drive to avoid reloading applications following a crash. As a work-around, Acronis suggested putting a full back-up on an external drive. While the external drive would not be bootable, the recovery from this back-up to an internal drive would be bootable. I have yet to test this.

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 new disk, as it's far safer and simpler.

Question, why do have your SSD formatted as a GPT disk? The tech support answer is correct by the way.

Answer: When ordering my Win 8 PC from HP I specified the SSD but not its partitioning; GPT is how it came out of the box. I was unfamiliar with GPT until dealing with the cloning problem; only after searching "GPT vis MBR" now understand that this is a newer design with certain advantages.
BTW, thanks Bob for your prior input and this follow-up. I have been traveling for several weeks and only just readdressed the original disk issue, which now is resolved.