cloned disk doesn't boot
I have a dual boot pc. Disk A contains Windows 7, Disk B Windows 10.
I cloned DISK A to a smaller disk.
When I try to boot using the new disk I get a message telling me that some hardware is not availible.
What I don't understand is why CLONING doesn't produce an EXACT device.


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2 things.
1) I believe cloning is not supported when moving from a larger disk to a smaller disk. It may work for some, but usually you need to be going from a smaller disk to a bigger one. Even on physical cloning devices, this same limitation applies - disks must be the same size or larger. Depending on the disk sector size (2TB and smaller are gernerally 512Kb with larger drives being 4K) the clone would most likely fail as well. SSD's regardless of size, often use 4K sectors as well.
2) This sounds like the dual boot is on different hard drives, is that correct?
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#21822.html
- Can I clone or back up and recover a dual boot machine? Yes, this is possible in most cases. If your systems are installed in separate partitions of the same physical hard disk drive, cloning or recovery usually proceeds without any problems. If the systems are on different physical hard disk drives, there may be some problems with bootability after recovery.
IN this case, I think that cloing is not supported in this configuration and you should image the primary drive and restore the drive to the new disk which will achieve the same results without the limitation of the clone operations and you'll have a backup image in the process.
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Thanks for getting back to me.
Yes, the dual boot is on different hard drives.
After cloning drive 2 I remove it and pop in the cloned drive. Nothing makes sense unless the comment about cloning to a smaller drive is correct. I haven't seen anything on the web that specifically says that this can't be done. When Acronis cloned the drive it automatically chose the best sizes for the existing partitions.
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I did see, from the link, the statement:
Can I clone or back up and recover a dual boot machine? Yes, this is possible in most cases. If your systems are installed in separate partitions of the same physical hard disk drive, cloning or recovery usually proceeds without any problems. If the systems are on different physical hard disk drives, there may be some problems with bootability after recovery.
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Mark, the recommended process when cloning is to put the new blank drive in place of the original drive (source drive) and attach the source drive either externally by USB or on a different cable internally (depending on what options you have available).
Please see KB articles: https://kb.acronis.com/content/56634 and https://kb.acronis.com/content/45831 which may help you with other known issues around cloning.
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