Skip to main content

Cloning a bootable HDD to a SSD

Tutorial

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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

0 Users found this helpful

Sofia, welcome to these public User Forums.

See KB 2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products which applies to all OEM versions of ATI supplied with hardware purchases.

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.

My personal recommendation would be as follows:

1.  Create the Acronis rescue media on a USB stick, then test that you understand how to boot your laptop using that rescue media.

2.  Make a full disk backup of the working HDD to an external storage drive.  This is your safety net in case cloning goes wrong or mistakes are made etc.

3.  Remove the HDD from the laptop and set it aside for safety, then install the new SSD in place of the HDD.

4.  Boot the laptop from the rescue media with your external storage drive also connected.

5.  Restore the backup made in step 2. to the new SSD.

6.  When all is completed, remove the rescue media and storage drive, then close the Acronis application to cause the laptop to restart.

Microsoft do not allow Windows to be booted from USB devices hence why your SSD in an external USB case did not work.

See KB 65508: Acronis True Image 2021: how to create bootable media and KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

KB 65539: Acronis True Image 2021: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

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:

  1. 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?
  2. 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

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!

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