Cloning a bootable HDD to a SSD
I just purchased a SSD to replace the HDD of my laptop. The SSD came with a kit which included the Activation Key for True Image OEM.
I eventually succeeded in downloading and installing the SW (hard time: instructions do not match reality), making the new disk (hosted in the external USB case) visible to Windows, making the new disk visible and usable by Acronis and cloning the original HDD.
Mismatching instructions is always an issue:
- It appears I have a very limited version of the SW: only cloning (and a few related features are allowed): this is not accounted for in the Manual.
- I want to to replace my HDD and, therefore, the SSD must be able to boot. However, the step (in the instructions) where I tell True Image I want to "replace a disk on this machine" is missing. So, I'm not sure my clone is actually bootable. In fact, I tried to boot from the SSD as USB device, but it does not work (the SSD appears in the boot menu and I modified the boot order to no avail)
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Sofia


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Thank you Steve,
I was under the impression that Win10 allowed booting off USB devices, hence instructions (urg! I'm unable to load pdf or docx, or insert links ... I keep getting errors. Please search this file on the web: "2.5-inch-ssd-installation-guide-windows.pdf") sounded reasonable to me.
However, I see your point and will try to follow your suggestions.
Still, there's a couple of things I don't quite understand:
- How can the source HDD be possibly damaged while cloning? It's always good to have a backup, but what could go so badly wrong to harm the source disk while cloning?
- I quickly checked KB "2931: How to clone a laptop hard drive": I don't have step 7, "Disk Usage".
As I already successfully cloned the HDD to the SSD, is there a way to make the latter bootable as opposed to going through the lengthy process you describe (for which I do not have all the features in Acronis)?
B.t.w., the statement: "Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive" suggests that it might work ... or there's really no chance? Well, I will find out the hard way.
Thanks,
Sofia
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Sofia, the quickest test here is to remove the HDD and replace it by the SSD inside the laptop then test to see if it boots correctly into Windows? If it does, then all is good.
As to what can go wrong with cloning, please see forum topic: [IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this - which was written after dealing with many cloning issues in the forums.
Using Backup & Recovery is always going to be the safest method as the source disk drive is removed and disconnected from the PC so cannot be affected by the subsequent recovery operation. With cloning you always have both source and target drives connected during the whole operation and while this should be completely safe, there have been too many instances where users have ended up with both drives being unbootable due to either a failure during the process or a user error in selecting the correct drive etc. The first action of cloning will always be to wipe the target drive in order to duplicate the partition scheme from the source, hence a simple mistake at this point can wipe an incorrect drive!
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Thank you Steve.
I'll drop a line here when I succeed or run out of options.
Sofia
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An update as announced ...
I gave it a try and it worked seamlessly! The cloned SSD could not boot as a USB device, but once I replaced the HDD with it, the laptop came up at the first boot attempt.
I still wonder why instructions do not match the actual SW (which appears to be several years old), but ... all well what ends well!
Thanks for the help,
Sofia
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