Replacing my OS Drive with mSATA SSD and a Hard Disc Drive for data/programs

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Kaushik Sanji, welcome to these User Forums.

Given the failing status of your main HDD drive, the priority should be to try to make a full disk backup of this drive to an external destination drive.  This should be done before attempting to install the replacement HDD or new mSATA SSD drives.

The results of the backup need to be checked in case you have encountered any bad sectors during the backup process.

Doing the backup using the ATI bootable Rescue media on a USB stick will help minimise the further impact of booting the failing HDD by not trying to launch Windows from it.

Assuming that you are able to make a successful disk backup of the failing HDD drive, then I would suggest trying the following.

Remove the failing HDD and existing small mSATA (80GB?) drives and install only the new mSATA 500GB SSD.

Boot from the ATI USB media and restore the required Windows partitions to the SSD, this should include the 500MB EFI System partition and the 99.11GB OS partition as a minimum, assuming that you are intending to restore the other partitions (Media, Games, Programs) to the new HDD drive later.  You can probably try to leave out the multiple Recover partitions assuming that your Windows OS is up to date and you are not intending to roll back to an earlier Update version.

Shutdown and try booting into Windows with just the mSATA SSD drive installed - you may need to check your UEFI BIOS settings to ensure that the Windows Boot Loader is found on the SSD.

If you are able to launch Windows from the new SSD then shutdown, install the new 2TB HDD drive then boot again from the ATI USB media and restore the further partitions to this drive.

Shutdown and boot into Windows again.

You will probably need to go into Windows Disk Management at this stage and change the partition drive letters for the HDD restored partitions, these will need to match how you show them in your screen image, i.e. Games on G:, Programs on H: etc.

Assuming that all has gone well to this point, then verify that everything is working as expected, that your programs launch ok etc.  Then make a new full backup of both of these new drives to your external destination drive.

Steve, I followed your procedure and restored the OS and its related partitions to the new mSATA SSD. I am able to boot to Windows.

While restoring the other 4 partitions to the new 2tb disc drive, I am facing some issues. I somehow restored the partitions named Media and Games. It's failing to restore the other two partitions. I am restoring one partition at a time since the 2tb disc drive was making some click noises. Thought it was getting over heated.

Attached is the error I am facing. I am currently helpless, I do not have any other system right now, just sending this through my iPad. I am not sure whether I can log in to my windows with the two important partitions namely "Program files" and "Sector 7" not present. Please check the error and let me know the next steps. Unfortunately I have not copied the logger into this bootable media, or I am not sure where to find it.

I did validate the backup image taken, it says that the backup image is successfully checked. Does not say anything more than that.

I forgot to mention one more thing. While restoring the OS and its related partitions to SSD, I restored "track 0" as well, since it was mentioned to restore in some of the forum threads here. Incidentally I see two identical UEFI entries in the boot manager for this SSD. Is this a problem?Does this mean I have two identical copies of Windows now!?

Kaushik Sanji, how are you doing the restore of the partitions for the 2TB drive?

Are you booting from the Acronis Rescue Media to do this, or are you using the ATI application running from Windows?

My reason for asking is that the error message says "Failed to read the snapshot manager drive" and snapshots are normally an indication of running from Windows where the Microsoft VSS is used for this purpose.  The Rescue Media application does not use snapshots as far as I am aware.

The key issue shown is the bad sector on your hard disk 1 (sector 839,406,664) but as this is also where snapshot data is stored, hopefully it doesn't indicate a problem with the backup data being restored.

Hard disk 1 in Acronis terms is the first disk drive which will be shown as drive 0 in Windows disk management, this is because Acronis starts counting from 1 whereas Windows starts at 0.

You should run CHKDSK /R against this disk drive to check for bad sectors and see if Windows can reassign any found.  If necessary, you could run the CHKDSK from a Windows Install DVD after booting that to a Command prompt window.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for responding. I am booting through USB Acronis media and doing the backup + restore. I am not doing in Windows. Not even logged into Windows still. Also, the bootable media was built using the Windows 10 ADK since the default was appearing in a very low resolution (not properly fitting the screen).

I am confused with what is happening here. Not sure on which drive I should be running the chkdsk. The ATI USB boots with a command prompt. I am currently using that to rectify the external hard disk which has the image backup file written to it. 

Should I also scan the USB which holds this ATI media as well?

Thanks for confirming that you are booting from the WinPE version of the ATI Rescue Media.

You should be running CHKDSK /R against the disk which is shown by Windows as disk 0 - you can identify this by using the DISKPART command in your command prompt window.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.16299.0]
(c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.16299.0

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: DELL-STUDIO

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          931 GB  2048 KB

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

Hi Steve,

Disk 1 happens to be the drive (2tb) to which I am restoring the image. See the attached.

Does this mean I have to buy another drive in the interim again!!? This is a Seagate Firecuda 2TB drive which is a newly released one!!

Why does the error say it failed while reading from disk 1!!

Have attached the log as well. Is there any problem if I resize the partition during restore?

How can I do a chkdsk on unallocated space of the drive. Also I will not know their drive letters.

Are you able to connect this 2TB drive to another computer, perhaps via a USB - SATA dock or adapter, and if so, you could create a single new partition in the unallocated space on the drive then run CHKDSK /R against that new partition.

An alternative approach would be visit the Seagate SeaTools web page and download the diagnostic tools from there to check the whole of the new 2TB drive.

Hi Steve,

The drive is too noisy. It is creating a noise similar to what we hear when we connect to the gateway using a dial-up modem. I guess there is some mechanical failure in the device. It starts to make noise continuously when it is not able to read.

Guess I will either return this if possible or ask for a replacement from Seagate if return is not accepted.

In the mean while, I am thinking of buying another SSD rather to be on the safe side. Wasted my whole day on this :(

Sorry that your new Seagate 2TB drive is failing but guess better it happens now rather than some time later when you have data that would be lost.  Hope you are able to get the drive replaced quickly.

Steve!!, I booted into the OS now!!. Changed the drive letters to what they should be. Running some diagnostics now.

I bought another 1TB SSD for the data partitions and restored their data to it. It went smooth without any hiccups, squeaks and whistle.

I will update after everything is validated.

Thanks a bunch for the help. If not for that stupid new hard drive, everything would have went just as per your detailed procedure.

Glad to read good news here, thank you for giving the feedback, and well done for persevering with the recovery and getting past the issues that arose. 

Hi Steve,

After couple of days of testing, I find everything to be normal again and better than what it was because of using SSDs. Will check for one more week, then I will take a complete backup image of the new configuration.

Regarding the Seagate 2tb drive, I tested through Seagte's Seatools and found that it is failing in the Long Generic test. Sometimes fails in the Short Generic test itself. So will be handing it over to Seagate Service center asking for a replacement.

Apart from this, while using the Acronis Bootable software, certain things that I found it to be confusing which can be considered for changes in the future verisons -

• While restoring the partition containing Windows OS, I could not explicitly specify the partition size. Option was grayed out/disabled.But this was available when I was restoring the data partitions. Is this working as intended?
• While restoring partitions from the image, we are given the options to specify the partition size and the free space before and after the current partition. This "free space" keyword used here confused me into thinking that the specified space size would actually create a blank partition before and after the current partition. Later I realized its adjusting the unallocated space. Not sure if I am the only one who got confused with this. I think there should have been some clarity on this shown in the software, could have been mentioned as "unallocated space" instead of "free space". This also confuses with the legends shown for used space, free space and unallocated space.
• While restoring the partitions, we also see "Track 0" available for restoring (provided it was there in the image backup). I had to search through the net as to what is "Track 0" and whether I need to restore it. I guess this could have been shown in the software indicating what is it for and when you should be restoring it. 
• Changing Drive letters can be removed as it shows certain drive letters when you are mentioning the letter explicitly for whichever first partition you have selected while restoring the list of selected partitions. As you move on to the second partition in your list of restoring the partitions, and then immediately return to the first partition's settings, some drive letters that showed up previously in the first partition's settings may not show up again. Not sure whether it is working as intended here, but anyways it does not make any sense to have this here since the drive letters in windows OS are going to be different. Sometimes even when I change the drive letter while restoring, the end summary says it will be updated to '-'.

The above stuff about the software changes are my personal opinion based on what I felt after using it live for a situation like mine. I think these can be considered for changes in the next version if possible.

All in all, I am very happy that I paid for the software that works and the community that helps its customers when they are in need of it.

Thanks a bunch again!

This issue can be closed now. 

Thanks once again for your feedback and comments, glad that all is still going well with the new SSD and drive.  Hope that you get a replacement or refund for the failing Seagate 2TB drive.

I would recommend putting your comments about possible changes in future versions of the product in the Feedback tool (available in the GUI) as these will then go directly to Acronis and fed into their system.

Sure will update the same in the feedback tool.