True Image 2017 backup & restore from HD to SSD results in very VERY slow unusable computer?

Belinea2010, you have provided a lot of detailed information but I am not sure that it is the information that we need in order to help you with the migration that you are trying to achieve.

Please can you provide some screen shots of your source 500GB HDD drive to show what the partition structure of the drive is, i.e. from Windows Disk Management.

Hi Steve

Thank you for your reply and sorry it has taken until now to post the images you requested

but I had to scramble to find graphics software as I did not have any.

Here is what I hope you needed

Thanks

Thank you for the screen images which confirm that you have a MBR type partition with just the 2 partitions, an initial 100MB System Reserved partition and then your main Windows OS partition with 87% free space showing.

Given that this is how your source drive shows from within Windows and you have a full Disks & Partitions backup on your external USB drive that you created using the ATIH 2017 Rescue Media (as per your steps 5 to 10 above), then I would suggest doing the following.

Connect your external USB drive containing your backup image.

Connect your new 250GB SSD drive - this can be connected internally on a spare SATA cable or externally via USB.

Open ATIH 2017 and use the Add existing backup option to add your external drive backup image.

Select the added task and then check that you can see an option for Recover disks, if so, then use this option to try to recover your backup to the new SSD drive as described in post: 128057: [Tutorial] How to recover an entire disk backup.  This tutorial was written for the Rescue Media but the principles shown should apply to doing the Recover disks from the Windows application.

Note: Please do not attempt to boot into Windows with both the Source 500GB HDD and Target 250GB SSD connected after doing the restore disks action.  The disk signature should be restored to prevent activation issues with any software that references that signature.

You should remove the SATA cable from the HDD and connect to the SSD to have this connected to the same SATA controller before starting Windows from the SSD.  The HDD should be left disconnected while testing with the SSD.

Hi Steve

Firstly may I say thank you for giving up your time to help out people

who have problems on here, I for one appreciate it.

I will now try the steps you suggest and report back how it went.

Many thanks.

Hi Steve

I may be over thinking this but I want to learn how to do this.

I followed your instructions and in the 'How to recover an entire disk backup' guide you

refered me to at step 6 it says "Select the top Disk 1 option on the What to recover screen."

I my disc image there is no Disk 1 only a Disk 2.

Is this the one I am supposed to select?

Just as an experiment I selected Disc 2 and followed every step in the guide but it just resulted in exactly the same booting errors as last time.

I then thought I would check all three discs in Disc Management so I internally reinstalled my old system drive (the one which I am trying to copy) and plugged the drive containing the backup into a rear USB socket. I then placed the new SSD into a spare USB disc caddy and plugged that into another rear USB socket.

By right clicking on each drive in turn Disc Management reported that all three discs were MBR but it was worth checking. Within Disc Management it shows the discs as follows

Disk 0 = The original/old system drive with two partitions: 1. System Reserved & 2. C:/.

Disk 2 = The new SSD (after the attempted restore with TI 2017) with two partitions: 1. G: System Reserved & F:. Obviously if this was the boot drive then it should show G: as system reserved and not a accessible drive and F: would be the C: drive.

So I am now wondering if the problem is that TI has copied the System Reserve over as a standard partition and not system reserved because I thought that System Reserved areas were not supposed to be accessible?

Interestingly when I inserted the SSD in the USB caddy windows opens a box that says "Do you want to scan and fix Local Disc (F:)? There might be a problem with some files on this device or disc. The two options it then gives are "Scan and Fix (recommended)" & "Continue without scanning. I chose "continue without scanning" for now.

I opened Disc Management and removed the drive letter from the System Reserved partition on the SSD and shut the PC down.

I then removed the old system disc and installed the new SSD in its place before rebooting.

This time it went to the "Windows did not boot correctly" screen - the one that gives you the option of boot as normal, boot safe mode and so on, so I selected safe mode. It got as far as

\Windows\system32\drivers\CLASSPNP.SYS and froze. I rebooted and this time it went to checking file system on C:.

I allowed it to run and it brought up the error

'As unspecified error occurred (766f6c756d652e63 3f1)' and froze.

I thought that at this point I had nothing to lose as I still have the backup image and the original system disc so I rebooted and entered Windows Startup Repair and left it to check my system for errors. I have just checked it after about an hour and my PC is frozen again.

At this point I am giving up for the night as its 4:56am and I am beginning to think that it should not really be this hard.

You might want to have alook at the link below:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/chkdsk-error-766f…

If you are seeing drive letters assigned to your restore SSD drive, then this has to be because you are looking at it from your HDD version of Windows and this has assigned these drive letters including to the normally hidden MSR partition.

The tutorial document was written for using the Acronis Rescue Media and is just a guide / example of how doing a disk restore should look, but there will always be some differences simply due to the different hardware in the computers used by other users such as yourself.

The most important point is that you select the correct target drive for your Restore operation, i.e. the SSD drive.

There should be no need to doing any partitioning on the target drive before doing the Restore provided that the target drive is offered as a valid destination (it will be greyed out if not!), as the Restore process will wipe out any partitions present as part of the process (unless you elect to only restore an individual partition and not the whole disk).

Hi Enchantech

Thank you for your post.

The source drive is a HD and when checked with chkdsk it reports no errors.

The target drive is a brand new SSD and I was under the impression that

you can not use chkdsk on a SSD as there is no actual drive to speak of?

Steve Smith wrote:

If you are seeing drive letters assigned to your restore SSD drive, then this has to be because you are looking at it from your HDD version of Windows and this has assigned these drive letters including to the normally hidden MSR partition.

Yes that makes sense.

Steve Smith wrote:

The most important point is that you select the correct target drive for your Restore operation, i.e. the SSD drive.

There should be no need to doing any partitioning on the target drive before doing the Restore provided that the target drive is offered as a valid destination (it will be greyed out if not!), as the Restore process will wipe out any partitions present as part of the process (unless you elect to only restore an individual partition and not the whole disk).

When I attempt the restore operation there are only two drives connected to my PC, 1. the target SSD connected internally & the USB HD containing the Backup Image conected via a rear USB socket so there is no chance of installing on the wrong drive.

As far as partitioning goes, I have not done anything to the new target drive apart from initialising it so that windows can see it?

You can and should run chkdsk on your SSD.  Even though it is not like an HDD chkdsk looks at a attempts to fix errors in the format and file system on the target device.

Hi Enchantech

Even on a brand new SSD that was only taken out of its box to have the Backup Image restored to it?

When I attempt the restore operation there are only two drives connected to my PC, 1. the target SSD connected internally & the USB HD containing the Backup Image conected via a rear USB socket so there is no chance of installing on the wrong drive.

As far as partitioning goes, I have not done anything to the new target drive apart from initialising it so that windows can see it?

If the above is correct, then I assume that you are booting your computer from the Acronis Rescue Media to perform the Restore, in which case, the tutorial document should guide you through the steps that are involved in doing this.

Hi Steve

I followed the steps in the guide carefully but still obtained the same result?

Belinea2010, I am sorry that this is not working correctly for you and am at a loss to understand why not?  I tested the process multiple times when I wrote the tutorial guide and other users have fed back that they too have followed the steps correctly to success.

I can only recommend opening a Support Case directly with Acronis to have them work with you to understand what makes your scenario different and prevents this Restore process from working correctly.  Please keep us informed of how this works out for you, as if it can affect you then it could affect other users too.

Just a thought and I may be wrong but the problem is the target drive will not boot after

True Image has restored the image to it.

TI also copies the old System Reserved partition when it makes the Backup Image

so if that Reserved partition contains specific information to the source drive then

after the image has been restored to the new drive the System Reserved data will be

wrong?

OK Steve, thank you for trying and I will report back

how I get along with CS.

Thank you for trying.

If you have installed the target drive in the same physical location (by cable connector) as the Source drive occupied, then the information held on the System Reserved partition should be correct, i.e. the Boot Configuration Data which stores details of which SATA controller / port the drive is connected to and should boot from.

My only other thought is to ask if you have any specific hard disk drive utilities or programs for the source HDD that may be causing a problem with the SSD when it boots.  

What happens if you try to boot the SSD into Windows in Safe Mode?  This should restrict the drivers loaded to the bare minimum needed to load Windows.

Hi Steve

I think you may have hit on something there regarding any disc utilitys for the SSD.

Before installing the SSD Samsung tells you to install a management utility called 'Samsung Magician'

which comes on a CD-ROM with the Samsung Evo drives. At this stage I am unsure of exactly what it

does but I believe its something to do with the Evo's RAM management.

This is a quote from a website about the utility:

"RAPID mode is a RAM caching feature. Samsung’s RAPID white paper states that RAPID works by analyzing “system traffic and leverages spare system resources (DRAM and CPU) to deliver read acceleration through intelligent caching of hot data and write optimization through tight coordination with the SSD.”

I tried booting into safe mode and my computer froze during the process.

I have also successfully restored to and booted from an old HD that I had spare - it boots perfectly and all my software licences seem to have been copied and authorised correctly so this proves that TI is working.

What I am going to try next is to un-install the samsung utility from my original source drive, remake the backup image and then try another

restore and boot on the new SSD. That way it will rule out or blame the the Utility for the problem.

If after uninstalling the the utility and restoring the new backup image the new SSD will still not boot I also have a brand new 500 GB Samsung Evo which I was going to use as a new 'user data' drive once the system drive was up and running. I will attempt a restore to that one and see if that works, if it does then it may point to the 250 GB SSD being faulty but if it does not it may point to TI having a problem with this particular brand/model of Samsung drives.

I am trying to rule things in/out before calling Customer Services but at least I am getting somewhere and your mention of the Utility was a brilliant call as I did not think of that. 

I will report back as soon as I have made the new image and tried a restore.

Samsung Magician should be disabled or uninstalled before doing the Restore as this is known to cause such problems.

We have had other users who hit similar issues which were caused by this program.  I hadn't really considered this as your source drive was a HDD but if you have installed it in preparation for the new Samsung SSD then it can be a factor.

You can quite safely re-enable or reinstall SM after the SSD is up and working with no problem.  I have it running on one of my own laptops with a Samsung SSD installed that I migrated from a HDD drive.

I bet that is the problem then - well thought of Steve.

The new backup image is being created as I type this and I

will report back later how I got so it may help anyone else who may

have this problem.

I promised an update so here goes...

True Image failed again despite my uninstalling the Samsung Utility - this time the SSD tried to boot and got as far as the desktop but then froze.

As I need my PC to be super fast and 100% reliable I simply do not have any faith in Acronis and I am going to stop trying with it and seek a refund due to it not being fit for purpose.

For software that claims to be able to do all that it says on its website and the fact that I am using the 2017 version it really should be able to restore to a SSD without too much input from the users - most of whom I suspect will be like me and not experts.

Over the last two days I have spent hours trying to get this to work with the kind help of MVP Steve and it has been a waste of not only my time and his but my money as well.

Yes it may have  been successful in restoring to a singular normal HD but it should also be able to do what Acronis claim and copy from and restore to SSD's - especially as they are becoming the norm these days.

For me, I need a backup software that I KNOW is going to work time and time again, one that I can have 100% trust in otherwise what is the point?

I chose Acronis True Image as it is the name for disc backups that I have heard over and over for years but, based on my experience, it most certainly does not live up to its hype.

In conclusion I am unable to recommend Acronis True Image but I would like to thank those kind people who tried to help especially Steve.

Belinea,

First I understand your feelings here, you are correct that True Image should be able to restore a disk image to an SSD.  The fact is that it can do so as I have done this many times myself and had success more than failure.

I use SSD's for Windows system disks exclusively and have for years.  I use True Image to restore backup image files to those drives when needed and can say without question that the app does work in this regard

Earlier in this post you asked should I run chkdsk on a new out of the box SSD?  The answer is yes you should when that disk gives errors indicating corruption which your disk has done.  Quality controls at the manufacturer level are not as stringent as they once were a few years ago and new out of box drives both SSD and HDD that have corruption or may be completely dead are now a reality and more common than ever before.  Case in point, recently I bought a new sealed in box 4TB Western Digital external drive for data storage.  Attaching this drive to one of my computers Windows immediately found the drive corrupt and offered to run chkdsk.  I obliged and 8 hours later the drive was fixed and has been in servuce ever since.

In your case I believe your disk to have some format and or file system corruption.  If I were you I would erase all data from the disk using Windows Diskpart Clean command, then use the True Image recovery media to restore the backup image you have to the disk again.  If you decide to try this and you cannot see your SSD once cleaned and machine booted to the recovery media you would need to use the Add new disk tool in the app to initialize the disk in the proper format,  Once that is done you can then restore to the disk.

If that effort fails yet again then I would RMS the drive back to the manufacturer as defective.

Hi Enchantech

Thank you for your kind reply.

I allowed windows to scan and fix the errors it found (it said it was file errors) but afterwards the SSD still refused to boot.

I have tried using TI 2017 in exactly the same way as described in this thread to Baskup & Recover my old system drive to another brand new Samsung 850 EVO 500gb SSD with exactly the same results and errors so unless I am unlucky and purchased two faulty SSD's on the same day from the same company I am unable to explaine why this is happening.

Anyway - After reading your reply, I have used Diskpart Clean on both the 250gb SSD and the USB HD that I am using to store the backup image and I am about to remake the backup image and then re-attempt to recover it to the 250gb SSD.

It is worth a try but if it does not work then I am at a loss.

Keep us posted.  As Enchantech mentioned above, even new disks can come from the factory with errors - bad hardware, damage in shipping, missed in quality control.

As you also have a Samsung drive, after testing your backup/recovery or clone with Acronis with your fully formatted/cleaned drive, you can also try the Samsung migration tool which comes with the drive and is accessible when migrating TO a Samsung drive.  This is a separate tool than Samsung Magician specifically for migrating an OS to a Samsung drive.

FYI, I use Samsung Magician while backing up and restoring without issue in Acornis.  However, I stopped enabling RAPID MODE, long ago as I found it to cause the OS to be unstable more times than not. Looks good on paper and in benchmarks, but there's no real-world use case for home users that I can really think of. 

If you've done all of these and nothing works, I would also recommend RMA'ing that drive for a new one - return it if you still can as an RMA usually results in getting a refurbished drive.

DATA MIGRATION

• Samsung Data Migration Software for Consumer SSD(11)

  This Samsung-proprietary software was designed specifically for Samsung SSD products and is available for any Samsung SSD products, including 470 Series, 750 Series, 830 Series, 840 Series, 850 Series and 950 Series. This software is not compatible with other manufacturers' SSDs.

  • Data Migration Software    36MB    Version 3.0    Download

Hi Bobbo

Many thanks for your reply.

I followed Enchantech suggestions and used Diskpart Clean on the 250gb & the 500gb SSD and on the USB 1tb drive that I use to store the TI backup image then made a fresh recovery Disc before creating a new backup image. I then restored the image to the 250gb SSD as per the guide that Steve Smith posted but again exactly the same problems.

I then restored the image to the 500gb SSD just to see if that worked but exactly the same problems.

I then restored the imaged to a spare standard HD and it worked and booted beautifully.

Just as an extra aside - I have also tried changing my SATA controller from IDE to ACHI but the SSD's still will not boot.

I have also tried Samsungs Migrate software but when that did not work I purchased TI thinking a program of it's reputation must be able to work.

Either I have been very unlucky and purchased two faulty, different sized, SSD's on the same day or there is certainly an issue here. :(

Hi Bobbo

Many thanks for your reply.

I followed Enchantech suggestions and used Diskpart Clean on the 250gb & the 500gb SSD and on the USB 1tb drive that I use to store the TI backup image then made a fresh recovery Disc before creating a new backup image. I then restored the image to the 250gb SSD as per the guide that Steve Smith posted but again exactly the same problems.

I then restored the image to the 500gb SSD just to see if that worked but exactly the same problems.

I then restored the imaged to a spare standard HD and it worked and booted beautifully.

Just as an extra aside - I have also tried changing my SATA controller from IDE to ACHI but the SSD's still will not boot.

I have also tried Samsungs Migrate software but when that did not work I purchased TI thinking a program of it's reputation must be able to work.

Either I have been very unlucky and purchased two faulty, different sized, SSD's on the same day or there is certainly an issue here. :(

Sorry I am unsure of why my reply is posted twice - whoops

Belinea2010 wrote:

Sorry I am unsure of why my reply is posted twice - whoops

It happens frequently - I have had it happen at least once a month for the last 6 months.

You thinky that you did not press the submit button (no apparent response) and press it again, ending up with multiple copies of the same post. 

Ian

Belinea2010 wrote:

Hi Bobbo

Many thanks for your reply.

I followed Enchantech suggestions and used Diskpart Clean on the 250gb & the 500gb SSD and on the USB 1tb drive that I use to store the TI backup image then made a fresh recovery Disc before creating a new backup image. I then restored the image to the 250gb SSD as per the guide that Steve Smith posted but again exactly the same problems.

I then restored the image to the 500gb SSD just to see if that worked but exactly the same problems.

I then restored the imaged to a spare standard HD and it worked and booted beautifully.

Just as an extra aside - I have also tried changing my SATA controller from IDE to ACHI but the SSD's still will not boot.

I have also tried Samsungs Migrate software but when that did not work I purchased TI thinking a program of it's reputation must be able to work.

Either I have been very unlucky and purchased two faulty, different sized, SSD's on the same day or there is certainly an issue here. :(

I think you have just hit the nail on the head.  This is a different controller type (moving from IDE to SATA), hence requiring a different set of drivers.  I don't think any of us realized you were moving from an IDE hard drive to an SSD until now.  

1) Yes, change the SATA mode in the bios to AHCI - this will be required for your SSD.  Do this before you boot to the rescue media and restore the image to the SSD.  Make sure your SATA hard drive is on SATA PORT 0 or 1 as well - some motheboards are limited on which SATA port can boot an OS.  0 normally is the one you want.  However, I just got an old HP to use as a media center and it refuses to boot on SATA port 0 so I moved the drive to port 1 and it boots now.  Also, be sure to disconnect the original IDE drive before attempting to boot and I believe you don't want to select mbr disk signature in this case.

If it still won't boot, see if you can safeboot the system.   If you can, it's possible that safeboot will allow the OS to boot and then load the correct drivers for your SATA controller into the reimaged OS without needing to do anything else.

2) If not, you may need to try running Universal Restore against the newly restored image on the new SSD.   You can try this 2 ways..

     a.) Just run UR against it without supplying any drivers.  That should generalize ALL drivers on the OS, which may make it bootable, but then you'd have to go back and install drivers in computer management for all of the other devices with yellow triangles.

     b.) OR, instead, if you can find your SATA controller driver for your system and OS, use UR to slip that driver into the OS build, but don't actually run UR restore.  You can, but then you have to update your drivers like in option a.

3) Additional question - I'm assuming your OS is a legacy/bios/mbr install since it was on an IDE drive to begin with.  However, when you launch your rescue media, it's possible your system may support UEFI (I'm not sure).  What does your Acronis menu look like?  Legacy (like this)  or UEFI (like this) when you start the rescue media to perform the restore? 

One other note - and probably the most obvious, but missed...

Did you check the boot order after restoring the OS to make sure the new drive is listed first?  That might be something else to check before running UR.

Disconnect all drives except the restored OS on that particular SATA drive.  Check the boot order - should only have that disk if all other drives have been disconnected.  Need to make sure it's not trying to boot to a CD rom or thumb drive or soemthing else after the restore too.  

IanL-S wrote:

Belinea2010 wrote:

Sorry I am unsure of why my reply is posted twice - whoops

It happens frequently - I have had it happen at least once a month for the last 6 months.

You thinky that you did not press the submit button (no apparent response) and press it again, ending up with multiple copies of the same post. 

Ian

haha I thought it was just me :)

Bobbo - It seems to have worked WOW 

Except windows has popped up a box saying Driver Software Installation - Samsang SSD 850 EVO 250GB ATA Device: Installing driver software but it seems to have become stuck as this has been up for about 8 minutes or so now.

Should I connect to the internet incase it needs to download the drivers?

Well that was a mistake - I connected to the net to allow Win 7 to seasrch for drivers and my computer has frozen.

Okay so I left my computer for an hour incase it needed more time then I rebooted.

Now it is stuck in a Startup repair loop where it checks for problems, seemingly solves it

reboots and does the same thing over and over.

I am so sick of this.

Sorry to hear of the continuing problems but perhaps we need to take a step back here and clarify what exactly is the situation with regards to the drives involved.

Rob (Bobbo) picked up on a point earlier about your original HDD perhaps being an IDE drive - this was because you had said about changing the controller mode for the new SSD from IDE to AHCI.  

What type of drive is the original HDD drive, i.e. is it a SATA drive (as I had assumed when responding on this post) or is it an IDE drive, aka a PATA drive?  The difference is significant if this is the case.  

SATA drives have 2 smaller connectors, each of which is ¬ in shape.

PATA / IDE drives has a larger 50 pin connector and a Molex type 3 wire power connector, plus may also have pluggable pins to select Master / Slave or Cable Select for the role of the drive.

If you system boots correctly on the original HDD drive and this is a PATA / IDE drive, then migrating the OS to a SATA SSD is a greater challenge than just doing a Backup and Restore or a Clone due to the controller differences.

Ditto Steve here!  In rereading this thread I too do not understand what differences exist in device connection and controller modes.  You made a lot of reference in earlier posts to USB connection of drives so that serves to muddy things up a bit as well.

As a thought... have you tried booting the original ide drive while the sata drive is connected as a secondary disk? That may prepare the is with the necessary sata drivers before you Image and restore.

if windows starts and says it's doing something, I'd let it run its course. Go to bed and check it in the morning. You might find it to be done with enough time.

if not try safe boot next. If that doesn't do it, consider trying UR. 

Keep in mind it's not just Acronis having this issue. It's the change from ide to sata that is causing the hiccup.

I successfully migrated from an IDE HDD to a SATA HDD on an ancient AMD system (must be about a year ago). That system had been using both IDE and SATA devices, so the necessary drivers were loaded. So, the suggestion of booting from IDE with a SATA drive attached should overcome the problem.

Ian

This is all guesswork at the moment until we have confirmation from the OP as to exactly what drives he has, but good information all the same for reference.

Sorry that I have not been able to reply to all of your kind posts and suggestions until now but I have been away from home.

I have successfully got it working now so that Acronis True Image 2017 will make a backup from my IDE SATA System drive and restore it onto a SSD.

The problem was being caused by the SATA drivers and settings within my BIOS and the fact that, for some reason, after restoring my system disk image to a SSD my BIOS then required me to change the SATA configuration from IDE to AHCI. But having done so this then caused windows to freeze at boot time as Windows did not have the AHCI drivers loaded and therefore could not boot.

So the fix was to first get Windows 7 to see my old HD as a AHCI before I make the disk image so when the image is made and then recovered to a new drive all of the drivers are in place and working. So I download the correct AHCI drivers for my motherboard and install them, made a change within Windows registry telling windows to load AHCI and not IDE (apparently Windows 7 does not load them by default even when it discovers new hardware). Shut down my PC, go into BIOS change SATA configuration from IDE to ACHI and then reboot.

Windows now sees my old IDE drive as a AHCI and loads the new drivers. I had to reboot twice while Windows did things internally but then it was happy. I used Diskpart Clean on both the target SSD and the USB drive that I was going to store my drive image on to make sure both drives were empty and fresh.

Shut the PC down and rebooted using the True Image Recovery Disk, made a fresh backup image of the source drive (my old system disk). When complete shut down the PC, removed the old system drive (which is on SATA port 1) and replaced it with the new SSD.

Rebooted into TI recovery disc, recovered/restored the image to my new SSD and shut the PC down.

Unplugged the USB Storage HD (this is where my disk image was stored) and booted my PC to the new SSD as the system drive.

Windows see's the new SSD and says new device found - loading drivers. It then needs rebooting twice while it does things internally and it is then perfectly happy.

Now I have a brand new SSD that TI is happy to copy and restore, windows is happy to use and so far it all seems ok.

I have also tried using True Image's Disk Cloning to do the same task and it also works perfectly fine after you have made all of the changes I mentioned.

As several of you have mentioned the problem was the SATA drivers causing the issue and the fact that I needed to change from IDE to AHCI in order for this to work but because my computer knowledge is not as good as it should be, I did not know that this was the problem.

I certainly did not decide that I wanted to change my SATA configuration or drivers until it was pointed out to me that this was the problem - all I wanted to do was use TI to copy my old system drive on to a new SSD and keep a back up should I ever need it.

The other thing that made things worse is that nowhere in my many hours of searching the net, windows website, Acronis website and the SSD manufactures website (Samsungs SSD tech support and website is next to useless) was it ever mentioned that I may have to change my SATA configuration in order to be able to use the new SSD and while some users may be tech savvy most of us are not.

If one of these companies just had a little one line mention somewhere in their FAQ's or support pages that if your PC uses IDE for SATA and you are installing or restoring to a new SSD then you may have to change your SATA configuration to AHCI it would have saved every one of you (and me) all of the free time you kindly gave up to try and help.

As I have said before I am very grateful for all of your help and I know you do it voluntarily so thank you again.

If you think it may be of help to someone else who may find them self in my situation I would be happy to type up what I had to do step by step - just let me know and I will do so.

Belinea2010, this looks to have been a marathon exercise to do something that would normally be straight-forward, so congratulations for sticking with this and fighting your way through the BIOS settings to find an answer with the mode change from IDE to SATA.  

This is very much a learning exercise for lots of us in these areas, as we do not have all the facts to hand in many situations - so this is one that I personally shall remember for some long time.

You are very welcome to document your steps required to resolve this issue and publish them in the forum to help other users.

Belinea2010 - first congrats for getting it worked out and sticking in there.  Glad you got it working and we all now know the root issue.

Windows drivers and bios settings can be a real pain - this is usually what gets unknowing users angry as they have issue with the product, but have a lack of understanding about bios firmware, settings and Windows drivers in general.  Backup products faciliate the transfer of a full OS, but when hardware is changed (IDE controlller to SATA controller in this case), often times, the OS has to be prepped for the necessary drivers and/or the bios firmware also has to be updated.  This is out of the backup products control (for the most part) as the OS being used, has a large part to play in this area.

Windows XP is terrible at handling hardware changes on it's own. Vista and 7 aren't much better.  Windows 8.1 is pretty good and Windows 10 handles this much, much better (although not always.  IDE drives are considered pretty ancient now - you won't find an IDE connection on most pc's purchased within the last 5 years (give or take).  However, the SATA mode of the bios settings is configured into the OS boot so when the controller changes, the OS usually can't handle them if it has not had a chance to boot since the change was made.  That's the catch 22. 

There is a reference to the controller type in the user guide, but it is kind of vague ... http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2017/#30481.html

Before you start

We recommend that you install the target (new) drive where you plan to use it and the source drive in another location, for example, in an external USB enclosure. This is especially important for laptops.

Warning! Your old and new hard drives must work in the same controller mode (for example, IDE or AHCI). Otherwise, your computer will not start from the new hard drive.

Any instructions or particular procedures that helped in your case, if you're up for prsenting them, that would be great.  

Hi all

As promised I have typed up the steps I had to take and if it helps someone else then it has been worthwhile.

Thank you again for all of your kind help and advice.

Kind regards,

Kenneth.

For anyone who may find they have the same problem as me this is a step by step run through of my solution but the caveat is although it worked for me it may not work for you as you may have different hardware to me. Having said that - many of the steps I had to take should still be relevant.

I would like to point out that none of this is NOT a failing of True Image, it is a Windows problem but once you follow the guide below True Image should be able to restore you system to a SSD.

Recap:
My OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit SP 1.
My Source drive (the one I wanted to backup): 500gb standard SATA
My Target drive (the new one I wanted to restore to) 250gb Solid State Drive (SSD)

My aim was to be able to use Acronis True Image 2017 to backup my current system C: drive, a 500gb IDE HDD, to a storable image which is to be kept on a USB hard drive. The reason for this is should for any reason I decide to buy a new drive, be it a IDE HDD or a SSD, I can just restore all of my operating system, programs, settings and (more importantly) user licences to my new drive.

I also decided that this would be a great time to upgrade my C: drive to a brand new faster but smaller 250gb Solid State Drive (SSD) - I went for smaller as my C: drive holds nothing except my Operating System and the programs I use. Everything else is kept on other drives so my total install would be well below 250gb.

Yes - I could simply do a fresh install of everything but my OS has been heavily optimised to act as a Digital Work Station - all un-needed bloat ware, drivers and system processes have been removed - and I knowing me I would not remember all that had been done plus all of my user licences would be wiped out. It would hours to do a fresh install from scratch but with True Image it now only takes around 18 minutes so this is why I purchased True Image.

As my posts in this thread shows when I followed the instructions on how to use True Image and then rebooted to the new SSD Windows would not boot and when I finally managed to get it do so my system was so slow that it was un-useable.

With the kind help and advice of those that had replied to this post and after a lot of online searching I worked out that it was the SATA drivers that were causing the problem.  

For whatever reason, under my install of Windows 7, Windows needed to be able to load AHCI drivers in order to use the SSD. I am far from being any kind of expert but my understanding is that AHCI is a hardware mechanism that allows software to communicate with Serial ATA (SATA) devices but Windows 7 does not load the drivers automatically when a new SSD is installed. 

You have to visit your Mother Board manufactures website and download and install the specific ACHI drivers they provide, after which you need to make a small change in the Windows Registry to tell Windows 7 to load these drivers, reboot your PC into its BIOS, change the SATA configuration to AHCI, reboot and allow Windows to load the ACHI drivers and you should be good to go. Windows 7 requested I reboot twice further as it loaded the ACHI drivers but after that it works perfectly for me.

Prepare your system to run the ACHI drivers needed to use a SSD as your system Disk. 

Disclaimer: I am no expert and these steps worked for me but may not for you. If you do not feel comfortable editing your Windows Registry then set a system restore point first. Should anything go wrong you can then roll back to an earlier point and undo the changes.
You should also understand that the following relates only to Windows 7 SP 1 64 bit.

1. With the disk that you want to backup still installed - download and install the ACHI drivers specific to your make and model of Mother Board. 

DO NOT REBOOT WINDOWS YET.

2. Open Windows 7 Registery Editor:
Click Windows Start button > type regedit and open regedit.exe.

3. Carefully Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\msahci

4. Change the Start DWORD value from 3 to 0 by 'right clicking' on the word 'Start', select 'Modify', change the number in the 'Value Data' field to 0 then click Okay.

5. Carefully Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Pciide

6. Change the Start DWORD value from 3 to 0 by 'right clicking' on the word 'Start', select 'Modify', change the number in the 'Value Data' field to 0 then click Okay. For this key it may already be set to 0 but you should always check.

7. Perform a 'hard reboot' by shutting your PC down completely and wait at least 15 - 20 seconds before booting into your systems BIOS.

8. Change the SATA configuration to AHCI then reboot and allow Win 7 fully load. Windows may take a number of minutes while it loads the AHCI drivers and you may be asked to reboot a couple of times but once done your boot time should be rather fast. Mine is around 20 seconds from power on to being able to use the system.

9. Click Windows Start button > type Device Manager and open it. Check that all of your devices are working correctly and that you have no yellow exclamation marks against your System Disk or IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. If you do, you will need to resolve those issues before continuing on with this guide.

10. Click Windows Start button > type Computer Management and open it. Click on Disk Management and at the top in the middle view make sure your system drive is there.
Lower down you should see your system drives partitions listed. Normally your system disk will be 'Disk 0' and with Windows 7 you should have at least two partitions: 100mb system reserved and a C: Primary Partition. If you have created more than one Primary Partition (IE: divided your disk into more than one drive) you should be able to see them also.

11. 'Right Click' on the area that says '(C:) then select Properties > General and make a note of the File System - in my case it said NTFS.
This is important because the disks that you wish to restore to using True Image should match whatever File System your Source drive is formatted to use.

12. Providing that the disk you wish to copy is a standard Hard Drive (not a SSD) you should now fully defrag it. 

13. If you have not already done so - create a Acronis True Image 2017 Recovery CD and leave it in the CD Drive.

14. Shut your PC down and unplug all hard drives connected to your Mother Board except the System Drive (the one I wanted to copy) and I plugged in the USB external drive that I am going to use to store my True Image Recovery Image.

15. Reboot your PC and select your CD-ROM as the boot drive.

16. Allow the Acronis Recovery CD to load and select the version of True Image that is appropriate to your version of windows - ie: 32 bit or 64 bit.

17. Once True Image has fully loaded from the left menu I selected 'Backup' then from the right hand menu I selected 'Disk and Partition Backup'.

18. On the next screen 'What To Back Up' it showed two Partitions on my system disk:
A. NTFS (unlabeled) (C:) Pri [it shows that it has only 60.9 GB of Used Space]
B. NTFS (System Reserved) (D:) Pri/Act [it shows that it has only 24.14 MB of Used Space].
19. I selected both partitions and clicked next.

20. On the next screen 'Archive Location' I selected 'Create new backup archive' and set the 'Backup Location' as my USB Hard Disk and set a file name.

21. On the next screen 'Finish' I clicked 'Proceed' and left TL to do its job which only took around 8 minutes.

22. Once TL reported the backup was successful and as no images were showing in the list I then selected 'Recovery' from the left hand menu and clicked 'Refresh Backups' from the right hand menu to refresh the list of backup images (to check the backup image was showing).

23. I then right clicked on the backup image and selected 'Validate Archive', on the next screen I selected 'Proceed'.

24. Once TL reported 'The Archive Was Successfully Checked' I shut my computer down - removed the old system disc and installed the new SSD on the Primary SATA port that the old system disc had previously occupied.

25. Reboot again to the PC's BIOS and boot to True Images Recovery CD again selecting either 32 bit or 64 bit.

26. From the left hand menu I selected 'Recovery'.

27. On the right hand side I then 'right clicked' on the image name in the list and selected 'Recover'.

28. On the next screen 'Recovery Method' I selected 'Recover whole disks and partitions' then clicked next.

29.  On the next screen 'What To Recover' it now showed three partitions
A. NTFS (unlabeled) (C:) Pri [it shows that it has only 60.9 GB of Used Space]
B. NTFS (System Reserved) (D:) Pri/Act [it shows that it has only 24.14 MB of Used Space].
C. MBR and Track 0 (this is the new one that has appeared).

30. I clicked all three and then 'Next'.

31. On the next screen 'Destination of Disk 2' I selected the new SSD and then clicked next.

32. On the next screen I clicked 'Proceed' and a new screen opens which says 'Data Recovery' showing the progress of the operation. At the bottom of this screen I also ticked the check box 'Shut Down The Computer When The Operation Is Completed'

33. Once TL had completed and shut the computer down I removed the TL recorvery disc and unplugged the USB Hard Drive that contained the backup image and then booted the computer as normal.

34. Once I was sure that Windows was working correctly and that all of my programs and licences are correct I shut my PC down, reconnected all other internal Hard Drives, rebooted and checked that my system was running perfectly.

As I have previously said - depending on your hardware and OS you may not have to pereform all of these steps but if my experience can help anyone out to get on the right path then I am very happy.

Kenneth, thank you for your care and attention to detail in documenting the process you followed, I am sure that it will form a very useful help reference for someone else who is trying to do the same migration.

Steve,

It is my pleasure to share and my gratitude to you and everyone who tried to help me is sincere and genuine.

I would never have figured all of this out on my own, it may help someone else.

I was able to boot into Acronis TIH 2014 from a USB recovery drive created using the trial version of ATIH 2017 as follows: turn off Secure Boot in the BIOS screen, turn off the laptop, boot into the Windows recovery menu (F11), insert the USB drive and select the boot from USB option (second one down on the left).