SSD won't boot after clone or restore

Terry, welcome to these User Forums.

It sounds like the clone / restore to the new SSD has been successful but the issue is getting your Acer computer to correctly recognise the SSD as the new boot device.

I assume that if you put your original HDD 1TB drive in the computer that this boots normally into Windows?

Try going into the Acer BIOS settings and noting how these are shown for the Boot Sequence when the computer boots normally.  That is what you need to see when the HDD is replaced by the SSD.  If this is a UEFI system, then you should see Windows Boot Manager as the primary boot device, it if is a BIOS/MBR system (legacy) then you should see the HDD itself.

Terry, do you still see Windows Boot Manager as the 1st Boot device when you have the SSD connected in place of the original HDD drive?

Yes. Windows Boot Manager was first when the SSD was connected. 

Thanks for the update Terry, are you able to boot from a Windows 10 install DVD (or USB stick) while the new SSD is connected, and does this see the drive correctly?

If it looks OK, are you able to try doing a Startup Repair on the SSD?

I don’t have an install DVD for this computer. I was just looking to see how to create a recovery drive on a USB drive. 

Terry, download the Microsoft Media Creation tool from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 which can create the install media on either DVD or USB stick.

I’ll try that next. Thanks. 

Have you looked at this?

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/windows-10-upgrade-stuck-choose-keyboard-layout-screen

Terry, glad you have found a way forward though a mystery as to why the clone wasn't successful in booting?  Activation with Windows 10 is based on the hardware signature of the PC, so this is why the clean install would automatically be activated as the change to the SSD was minor and the signature remains recognised as having being activated.

Terry,

This is a bit late now however it may help in the future.

First, Windows 10 relies on hardware ID for authentication rather than a product key.  This means that you can re-install Windows 10 on any machine that has previously had a Windows 10 installation and the hardware will authenticate the install.

Second, have a look in your machine bios and look to see if Acer disk to disk recovery is enabled.  If it is then I suspect that was your problem in getting the SSD to boot as expected.  I think that if this feature was enabled when you tried to boot to the new drive this recovery feature kicked in instead and attempted to help you recover your C: drive to the new SSD.  Disabling that feature I think would have allowed the machine to boot from the new SSD.

My system will no longer boot from my SSD Windows partition after restoring the drive with TI2018.  I have tried several different Full backups with different creation dates. All restores claim to have been successful.  Boot attempts fail with an indication that no operating systems exist on the drive.  The machine boots from DVD just fine, and it has traditional (legacy) BIOS.

I believe the backups were created with the original TI 2018 build (ransomware protection implemented).  However, I believe I am restoring with the most recent build, if that makes any difference.  I just read that the ransomware protection also does something with the MBR, as indicated in the last sentence of this article:

 https://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2018/#37848.html

The physical SSD drive has a number of partitions, as follows:

1) 100MB Healthy partition (not sure what this is, but has been there ever since I originally cloned from my HD to the SSD 2 years ago)

2) 237.8GB Healthy, Active, Primary Windows partition (C:)

3) 100MB unallocated

4) 450MB Recovery partition

Every recovery I have executed restored each of the partitions and all were successful.  I'm suspecting that the ransomware implementation may be implicated in this situation.  Also, I can access all the data in the Windows C: partition using a Knoppix boot CD, so I'm fairly certain that the NTFS file system in that partition is good.  I can also boot my Windows 10 distribution CD.  It cannot repair Windows, but using Command prompt I can see all of my folders and files.  Very weird.

Can anybody tell me how to manually correct the MBR and/or the BCD or anything else that might be preventing Windows from booting?  I have far too many applications and other programs in Windows to go back and start over with a clean install, which is a major reason I have Acronis backup software.

AZMoosie, the anti-ransomware component of ATI 2018 has no bearing on doing a recovery using the ATI bootable Rescue media DVD/CD or USB stick - it does not make any changes to the MBR and is only operational when Windows is booted where it protects the MBR from any unwanted changes that malware might try to make.

When doing a recovery of a MBR system, then the Rescue Media must be booted in Legacy mode (not in UEFI mode if your BIOS supports this, this would result in converting your drive from being MBR to GPT).

You also need to recover the MBR and Track 0 when restoring to either a new drive or to a formatted drive.

The 100MB partition should be the Microsoft System Reserved partition which holds the Boot code for allowing Windows to boot correctly using the information in the Boot Configuration Store.

Thanks for that quick response Steve.  Just to clarity, I do not have UEFI BIOS, my BIOS is a legacy BIOS.  If you are correct about Acronis ransomware protection, and I have no reason to disagree, then why has a full recovery of the drive not restored it to a bootable condition.  Once again, the major reason we backup our drives, especially our boot drives, is to be able to restore them and successfully boot afterwards.  I have executed numerous successful recoveries on the drive yet the drive fails to boot.  I have no reason to suspect the physical drive, especially given that the recoveries are successful.

In years past, when all of my data and operating system files were on a single drive, I was always able to perform a full restore of the drive and then successfully boot from the drive.  Not this time.

I can't imagine what I'm doing wrong that is preventing the restored drive from functioning.  I have sent a note to Acronis support, but you and others typically respond much quicker, so I decided to post here.

Assuming that the Acronis ransomeware protection is not a factor, can you or someone else that monitors this forum provide guidance as to how I can rebuild or repair the components involved in booting the Windows partition?

Thanks in advance...

Have you checked the boot order / priority in the BIOS settings after doing the restore? Given this is a Legacy BIOS system, then this needs to point to the SSD drive as the boot drive (for a UEFI system, it would point to the Windows Boot Manager instead).

Please see KB 59873: Acronis True Image 2017: recovering Windows from a boot failure which may provide some more help.

See also webpage: Build a Bootable BCD from Scratch with Bcdedit which covers the commands you asked about for rebuilding the boot configuration data store.

Another webpage is: Repairing A Broken Bootloader Or Master Boot Record In Windows 7, 8, And 10

I would recommend reading through all of the above reference sources to gain a better understanding of what is involved here.

Many thanks Steve, I'll commence my reading shortly.  At this point I have little to lose, so attempting a repair solution after one final Acronis recovery of that SSD drive can't hurt.  I'll let you know how this turns out...

Steve, I got my system working last night.

It was not a straight line and I will not try to reproduce, but it has been reported to Technical Support.  This is what I just responded to the tech:

The new issue involved failure to boot my SSD Windows drive after restoring the full backup of that drive. It will be impossible for me (now) to provide documentation because so much transpired in a few days. Any full backup I tried to restore, that had been created after build 10640 was applied did in fact complete successfully, BUT my system would not boot. As I was preparing to rebuild the MBR and BCD related components manually I realized that all of my troubles began after that build was applied. I created a current (2018) Recovery CD on my wife’s machine and tried to perform another recovery. It was successful but once again my system would not boot. I then decided to try a recovery using a full backup file created prior to the installation of build 10640. It was successful and my system booted after the recovery completed. My original install of TI2018 was 11/11/17 but I did not record that build number at the time.

It has taken me a few hours last night and today to get files synced and emails caught up, but everything seems to be working correctly now.

Have there been any other reports of failure to boot from an SSD after an Acronis recovery?

To be certain, I am relieved but since I do not intend to reproduce the problem environment, I suspect the trouble ticket will be closed.

Thanks for the advice you provided...

Thank you for the update / feedback.  I am pleased to hear that you have got your system back again (using an earlier build backup image) but obviously alarmed at the implications of this issue if it is proven to apply more generally.  I will need to find some time to try to test this out on a spare computer for my own peace of mind!

AZMoosie, I did a clone yesterday from my laptop internal 1TB SSHD to a spare 1TB SSD which was completed fine via an external USB 2.0 Dock.

I then disconnected the external SSD / Dock and verified that the original SSHD was still booting fine into the Triple-boot OS's I have on it (Win 10 Insiders / Win 10 1709 / Ubuntu 16.04 LTS) and all was fine.

Today, I removed the SSHD from the laptop, replaced it with the cloned SSD and did the same boot test for all 3 OS's which came up just fine with a single exception that I was given a short error message (from GRUB I think) which indicated that the drive UID for the SSD was different to that expected from the SSHD, but with the simple option of pressing Enter to continue.

Finally, after testing the SSD for an hour or so, I replaced back the original SSHD drive and am back using it now for this update.  All this was done using ATI 2018 build 10640 and starting the clone from within Windows, including rebooting to continue the reboot as ATI wouldn't let me do a live clone with Ubuntu Linux EXT3 partitions being included in the mix.  I had done a previous live clone to the same SSD before I had installed the Ubuntu partition & swap partition.

I know this is a bump for OP but again it may help someone else with a similar issue, as you changed from an HDD to SSD you were unlikely to have AHCI drivers in Windows as it was a clone.

I had the same issue when swapping from AHCI to RAID (staying on SSD) in BIOS - I restarted in safe mode, uninstalled AHCI drivers, reboot and enabled RAID in BIOS. Windows 'should' then load correct drivers on a further restart.

I can't see why it wouldn't work in reverse?

I've not been able to boot to Windows 10 on my Acer computer hard drive when the restore is done on that computer (tested with bios "Secure Boot" both on and off).  When I do the restore (backup made on the Acer computer) on my wife's HP computer using a docking station, and then put that drive in the Acer computer, it boots up just fine. Still communicating with Acronis support, but the mystery has not been solved.  Additional information posted:     

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2018-forum/unable-bo…

George, thanks for the cross reference and for sharing your update here.

Steve - It appears I am about to try and do something similar but a bit easier:

Install Samsung 960 pro 512 GB SSD as a replacement for 128 GB SSD. I can't clone directly so I am looking at using a full backup on a WD NAS as the source?

It this the way to go for this option?

Ken

The 960 Pro is an M.2 PCIe drive which of course you know.  Restore of a full backup of the 128B drive to the new 512GB drive is the way to go.  The key is to supply the storage drivers necessary to the Recovery Media so that the Media can see and work with the PCIe drive.

I am having similar problems to the first article in this thread and am unable to get the ssd to boot or restart.

I used True Image  2018 Build 10640 and followed the steps laid out in the manual using the backup and recovery method.

My system is on a Lenovo M73z all in one machine running Windows 10.

I have kept the original HDD and it boots and runs OK. I made a backup of HDD and a backup of the version once copied to a clean unallocated SSD (Samsung Evo 860) The original disk and the SSD are both 500GB.

The partition structure reads on the SDD

  Volume ###  Ltr   Label                   Fs              Type           Size            Status        Info

  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------

  Volume 0     C     Windows8OS      NTFS        Partition       453 GB        Healthy       Boot

  Volume 1            WINRE_DRV        NTFS       Partition       1000 MB     Healthy       Hidden

  Volume 2             SYSTEM_DRV    FAT32      Partition        260 MB      Healthy       System

  Volume 3                                         NTFS       Partition        451 MB      Healthy        Hidden

  Volume 4            Lenovo_Reco       NTFS       Partition        10 GB        Healthy        Hidden

I Used the WinRE based Acronis bootable USB to create the image and restore it.  I installed the SSD into the machine to carry out the restore and disconnected the HDD before booting.

When I complete the restore and escape out of Acronis and the command prompt the boot up will continue on the  SSD and it works. However, if I switch off or restart I end up in the endless recovery loop. I can get up and running by using diskpart to create an unallocated drive and adding it with Acronis via the usb the recovering the disks an partitions again.

I have tried removing the Lenovo recovery partition and it still goes into endless loop mode. The bios shows a UEFI system with  Windows Boot Manager as the first device. I checked the sector structures to ensure they were the same (512).

It seems as if the SSD is not being recognized at start up or restart I do not know what else to check. I have been in contact with Lenovo but have not had any answers yet.  Any suggestions on where to check would be greatly appreciated.

After multiple failed attempts using ATI disk cloning (not ATI restore) over several days and hours of investigating, I downloaded the free Samsung cloning software. It was completely successful on the first pass. The new 860 EVO 500GB has run flawlessly ever since on a Lenovo Ideacenter Y900.

Just tried using the Samsung cloning tool and I now have a bootable disk. Thanks for the info.

Looking a the partition structure after the Samsung backup 2 reserve partitions are dropped (Lenovo rescue). I will check it several times to be  sure. 

Per the Samsung documentation:

5. The OEM Recovery partition created by the computer manufacturer as a factory setting will not be cloned. However, it will be automatically cloned if the manufacturer is Samsung and SRS (Samsung Recovery Solution) 5, SRS 6, or SRS 7 is installed. (Versions lower than SRS 5 are not supported.)

In my case, I cloned the recovery partition before the migration, so it appears in place.

However, you can download the recovery media directly from Lenovo and store it in a safe place.

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/HT035659

I'm running into similar problems, thanks Steve, you helped me recently! get a working system but I have a new problem, as I'm testing my backups

I've added to this thread as it seems related.

I've tried working with Acronis support, unsuccessfully - it's been going backwards forwards every other night.

A bit of history.

• I've been using ATI 2018 back up my NVMe (Samsung 960) C drive (complete disk) whilst running Windows 10 to the Cloud for some time.
• About a month back,I had issues with my machine, I restored from the cloud back up to my NVMe drive via WinPE Acronis from USB stick
• Restore completed successfully
• Machine booted but didn't get to Windows 10 log-in screen, just as it would usually pop up the lock screen, it would stop with black screen, no crash, just stop.
• I removed all the partitions, restored an earlier back up again
• Completed successfully
• Machine booted, but I had all sorts of issues, windows updater wouldn't run, troubleshooter would error - Steve helped me do an in place upgrade of Windows - this fixed everything.
• I then created a new full back up of the C drive to the Cloud.

• I tested restoring that back up to another SSD (Samsung EVO 850) in my machine - this worked successfully. Could boot to this drive, no problem - success I thought!

• I continued doing incremental backups of my NVMe C Drive
• I tried to test one of these backups using the same process as above.
  • The back up (the one I was trying to work with Tech Support on) would almost get to the Logonscreen, but would crash with a runtime error, be stuck in a loop, preventing login to windows. I couldn't get to safemode (as suggested by support)
  • I booted back to my NVMe (by changing boot order) and did another incremental backup a few days later
  • I tested restoring this to the SSD; it restored successfully, the machine would be stuck in an endless startup repair but never fixed it
  • I booted back to my NVMe and did another incremental back up a few days later
  • This backup restored successfully to the SSD, but the same issue with the black screen
  • I booted back to my NVMe and did another incremental back up a few days later
  • This backup restored successfully to the SSD, but blue screened with a "SECURITY_INITALIZATION_FAILED" and forced a hardboot to UEFI

So i'm stuck, the TLDR; the first back up restores a working Windows 10 system from the cloud. All incremental backups from the cloud after that point, will restore successfully but will not boot to Windows 10. The file system of the main partition in the backup is fine as after restore, all files are there, which is why I continue to do backups.

My hunch is it is something to do with the MSR partition or the System partition or the boot partition being not backed up /restoring properly.

Support did give me one tip, to save the logfile - I've attached it, despite it completing successfully, there is an error - "Failed to detect OS." - supporting my hunch.

I'd love to get to the bottom of this as I don't want to manually create a new back up instance every time I want to be confident that I can restore!

Sean, the way that restores are done from the Cloud are somewhat different from doing the same from a local drive, so looking at the messages in the log, I am not sure that the messages such as:

event code=8;  id=10;  level=3;  line_tag=0xF5E7A826719853FF;  message=Failed to detect OS.  module=57;  date/time=16/03/2018 20:33:49

which is repeated 12 times in total is evidence of an error or simply the fact that you are restoring to a drive which has been wiped as one of the first steps, and therefore has no OS.

event code=504;  id=3;  level=2;  message=Pending operation 52 started: 'Clearing disk'.;  module=1           date/time=16/03/2018 18:00:48
event code=504;  id=4;  level=2;  message=Pending operation 14 started: 'Recovering partition sector by sector'.;  module=1          date/time=16/03/2018 18:00:48
event code=504;  id=5;  level=2;  message=Pending operation 14 started: 'Recovering partition sector by sector'.;  module=1          date/time=16/03/2018 18:00:48
event code=504;  id=6;  level=2;  message=Pending operation 14 started: 'Recovering partition sector by sector'.;  module=1          date/time=16/03/2018 18:00:48
event code=504;  id=7;  level=2;  message=Pending operation 14 started: 'Recovering partition sector by sector'.;  module=1          date/time=16/03/2018 18:00:49
event code=504;  id=8;  level=2;  message=Pending operation 61 started: 'Recovering MBR'.;  module=1          date/time=16/03/2018 18:00:49

I suspect that if you saved the log for your successful recovery to the Samsung EVO 850 drive you would seen the same messages posted there too.

Sorry that this doesn't help explain why the recovered drive is not booting correctly here.  One thought from some issue raised in the forums a while back, there were problems where backups were done with Samsung Magician active on the drive.  Stopping Magician or uninstalling before a backup then gave a good recovery.  This may date back to ATI 2016 or 2017 but could be worth checking?

@Piers Saunders,

Would you please post your computer system specs?  This will help others to better understand your situation.

Looking at your logfile it looks to me to be clean.  In my experiences with NVME drives and those of others here I think your problem is not with the restoration process but that of leaning how to boot your machine once the restore has completed.

Many machines using NVME boot drives have issue when booting after a restore of a backup image.  This is, as far as I can determine, an issue with the machines bios.  In some cases an NVME restored drive will become locked and exhibit behavior like you have described.  

Once you post your machine specs I'll do some investigating and see what I can come up with.

Thanks @Enchantech! that certainly sounds like it could be locking

I just restored the first backup I made from NVMe to SSD again and it worked fine, booted correctly. I've tried some later increments and the same problem.

The build is new as of Nov 2017.

Here is the key info, if you need more, I can upload the NFO file.

• OS Name    Microsoft Windows 10 Home
• Version    10.0.16299 Build 16299
• System Manufacturer    Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
• System Model    Z370 AORUS Gaming 7
• System Type    x64-based PC
• Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8700K CPU @ 3.70GHz, 3696 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s)
• BIOS Version/Date    American Megatrends Inc. F4, 30/10/2017
• BIOS Mode    UEFI
• BaseBoard Manufacturer    Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
• Secure Boot State    Off
• PCR7 Configuration    Binding Not Possible
• Windows Directory    C:\WINDOWS
• System Directory    C:\WINDOWS\system32
• Boot Device    \Device\HarddiskVolume12
• Locale    United Kingdom
• Hardware Abstraction Layer    Version = "10.0.16299.248"
• Time Zone    GMT Standard Time
• Installed Physical Memory (RAM)    16.0 GB
• Main Drive backups made from is:NVMe   Samsung SSD 960 EVO 250GB
• I'm restoring to an SSD: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB

Update: I've made 17 backups to the cloud. I had successfully restored the first, later increments were failing. However, I've just verified that I could strangely also restore back up 4!

Hoping to get to the bottom of this!

Thanks Steve! I think you meant me. Yes, I'll check that log file when it works too, that would make sense. I don't have the Samsung Software installed, unfortunately.

Piers,

Questions:

1. I see you are located in the UK, your Time Zone indicates GMT Standard time, is that correct?
2. After you perform the restore are you disconnecting the NVME drive prior to attempting to boot the SSD?
3. Is the SSD attached to SATA port number 0?

I will assume that the answer to question 1 is Yes, correct.

I will assume that the answer to question 2 is No.

I will assume that the answer to question 3 is Yes.

I have experienced the same issues you have with a system based on an ASUS mobo.  Another MVP here experienced similar issues as you with a system based on a Gigabyte board.  In both cases the methodology used to boot the machines corrected the issue.  The Gigabyte board proved to be the most problematic here.

The first thing is that you should not under any circumstances attempt to boot a UEFI booted machine with 2 drives attached that have the same identity.  This is what you have when you restore a backup of one drive to another drive in the same computer as you are essentially creating a copy of one disk to another using the Restore or Clone process.  A UEFI booted Windows machine will exhibit the behaviors you state if you do so.

My recommendation to you is this:

1. After you recover a backup to your SSD drive shutdown the computer.  Unplug the computer from the electrical source and then press the Power button on the case 2 or 3 times to discharge all residual current.
2. Remove the NVME drive from the computer and make certain that the SSD is connected to SATA port 0
3. Boot the machine into the bios and make certain that Windows Boot Manager is first in the Boot Order List.
4. Once boot order is confirmed/changed then Save and Exit the bios and allow the machine to boot.

I believe this will result in a successful boot of the restored drive.

With respect to step 2 above you should already have the SSD drive attached to port 0 when you do the recovery.  Some SSD drives and/or mobos will not boot correctly if the boot disk drive is not attached to the first SATA port number.  Some boards start the SATA port number with 1 rather than 0 so check yours in this respect.

Thanks Enchantech for quick response

1. Yes in UK!

2. Yes! I'm trying to test the restore without pulling hardware.

3. SSD is not on SATA - 0 - motherboard doesn't seem to mind, I can boot from the SSD when I move it up the boot order. [NVMe has chosen Disk 5, SSD is Disk 3 currently.]

 I have a couple of options in this testing scenariot

Option 1 - Open up the case, uplug the NVMe, move the SATA ports around, and reboot to test. If test sucessful, plug back in NVMe, etc.

or

Option 2 - Don't open the case, have faith in the backups - wipe the SSD, wipe the NVMe drive, then restore the most recent backup to the NVMe drive.

Option 3 - Do nothing, and deal with Option 2 when I have a machine failure!

I'm tempted to go for Option 2, opening up the PC is not straightforward as it's my media pc in the living room.

I'll have a think on this tonight - thank you again for the solution.

I would suggest Option 1 but you may not need to move the SSD to port 0.  I can successfully boot my Samsung EVO 850 drives (I have several) when they are not using port 0 so I would say the same would work for you.  It just depends on your hardware configuration. 

Using Option 1 would insure that you have a drive that you know for sure will boot whereas option 2 would not.

Early indication not good :(

I restored from within Windows, since the restore from cloud is only about 1.5 hours vs 3-4 hours via WinPE. This night be significant, I hope so!

Recap.

• From my working system, I ran backup to create another incremental backup to the cloud.
• I then restored this backup from within windows (after removing all partitions) to the SSD, it restored successfully.
• I removed the NVMe drive and followed your steps,
• I booted the machine, after spinning dots for a little bit, a BSOD and stop error. This forced a hardboot to UEFI with 4 beeps (very odd as this indicates a Real Time Clock malfunction according to the manual).
• Note, this is the same error I get if both drives were connected and I change the boot drive/environment :(

I'm now trying the same process from within the WinPE environment, perhaps Windows 10 messed with the drive signature. I'm hoping this is the case, though I don't have confidence!

I'll be back in a few hours.

I have used several brands of SSD (including Samsung ones - my favourite SSD and NVMe drives) and have never found it necessary to ensure that they were attached to SATA port 0 to boot correctly. However, sometimes if I add a new HDD/SSD the bios reverts to booting from port 1 which is easily fixed.

Ian

Update, Restoring from the WinPE environment gave an identical error as restoring from Windows, with or without the NVMe drive present.

BSOD - STOP 0xC000021A

What I know:

1. I cannot restore the most recent incremental cloud based back up to result in a working bootable system
2. A full system back up (e.g. the first one) can be restored to the SSD drive
3. From the recent tests, disk signatures don't appear to be an issue - I can continue to test without disconnecting hardware - as demonstrated by the working restore from point 2.
4. Restoring from WinPE or from Windows appear to work identically - I continue to restore from within Windows to the SSD drive - which is much quicker.

Any thought on next steps? :S I'm worried.

Many thanks MVPs for your help to date.

Piers, first apologies for calling you Sean earlier - not sure where that came from? Probably a senior moment!

For this recovery issue I would recommend opening a Support Case direct with Acronis as this is a worrying development if there is uncertainty for anyone wanting to recover any backups with incrementals.  You have provided a wealth of detail with your testing, so would refer to this forum topic in your case and direct support to read through the experiences shown here from yourself and other users.

Trust you are not impacted by the snow hitting us here in the UK today - we woke to around 4 inches this morning in Hampshire (as was expected given the Amber alert for our area).

No problem Steve, I have them, too!

I've raised the ticket, let's see what they come back with.

Snow, not too bad here (London), it's just  !"$%%% cold. Stay safe and warm :)

Piers,

The BSOD - STOP 0xC000021A error code means in most cases that either  WinLogon or (CSRSS) Client Server Runtime Subsystem are causing a BSOD or it could be Winlogon or CSRSS are corrupted.  You can try the following steps to correct the issue.

Warning!! The steps below should be performed with ONLY the SSD drive attached to your PC.  All other drives and devices including those attached via USB except mouse and keyboard should be disconnected from the PC prior to following the procedures below.

I will assume here that after you see this error Windows Automatic Repair runs but fails to correct the problem.  You then have the options of Restart or Advanced options. 

Selecting Advanced options takes you into the Windows Recovery Environment where you can access some tools to help in attempting to repair the problem files.  After selecting Advanced options on the next screen select Troubleshoot, then Advanced options again and finally select Command Prompt.

After the command prompt window opens first determine that your Windows installation is in fact on drive C:.  To do this at the prompt type CD C:\ then press Enter.  Your command line will now change to C:\.  Now type Dir.  Your command prompt should change to show the Windows directories on your PC similar to the screenshot below:

If you do not see this Windows directory structure then that would indicate that your Windows installation drive letter has changed which would mean that the BCD file needs repair.  Given the error you have I would not think that the case however.

Since WinLogon and CSRSS are Windows system files it is important to insure that the disk filesystem is not corrupted. Another command line instruction can be used to find and fix disk filesystem errors.  At the C\: prompt type chkdsk /f /r. You will be asked if you want to dismount the drive, type Y for Yes and let the command run.  It will take some time for this to complete.  If errors are found they will be fixed by the procedure.  Once the process completes reboot the machine and see if the problem is fixed.  If not choose Advanced Options again to get back into the Windows Recovery Environment.

The next command to run from the command prompt will find and fix most Windows system files errors.  Again change to the C:\ prompt.  From the C:\ prompt type SFC /SCANNOW (note the space between SFC and /).  After this process completes again reboot the PC and see if the problem still exists.  If it does proceed with the next step below.

From the C:\ prompt in the Windows Recovery environment type dism/online/cleanup-image/restorehealth.  Again after the process completes reboot the PC and see if the problem is fixed.  If not then again select the Advanced options in Windows Recovery environment and the Command Prompt again.

Change the command prompt again to C:\.  From the C:\ prompt type dism/image:C:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions (note: there is a space in the command between the cleanup-image and the / in the command).  Let the command complete and again reboot the PC and see if the error is fixed.  If not there is one more thing you can try below.

Selecting Advanced options again to get to the Windows Recovery environment then Advanced options again to get the recovery options screen.  This time select the Startup Settings option and select Restart.  From the next screen select option (5 Enable Safe Mode with Networking.  Let the PC reboot to enter Safe Mode.  If the PC can run in Safe Mode this is a good sign.  From the Safe Mode screen right click the Windows start button and select Shutdown or Sign out then select Sign out.  What you hope to see here once sign out completes and the PC reboots is the Windows logon screen which would mean success at fixing the issue.

Hope this helps.

:)

Thanks Enchantech, I followed the instructions, sadly no change - rebooting after each screen and received the same BSOD each time.

• There were no disk errors.
• SFC /SCANNOW 
  • Verification 100% complete, then Windows Resource protection could not perform the requested operation
• dism/online/cleanup-image/restorehealth
  • DISM does not support servicing windows PE with the /Online option
• From the C:\ prompt type dism/image:C:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions
  • The operation completed successfully
• I can't get to safe mode, same BSOD as before.

Piers,

That is bad!  Did you try the chkdsk?  If you have disk filesystem corruption on the SSD it could most definitely prevent the disk from booting.

When you are restoring the image to the ssd are you clearing all data from it prior to running the restore?  If not you might want to try doing that. 

The last resort option is to once again reset Windows 10 as Steve had you do previously but that is the extreme measure here and one which you should not have to do.

Having Acronis Support get involved so that they can remote into your machine to see what's going on is another but again, you should not have to do that. 

Piers,

One last thought on this, if you have Secure Boot enabled in the machine bios you might try disabling it and then attempt to boot. 

@Enchantech yes I was removing the partitions with EasUS partition manager, so that Acronis recreates the partitions. They are created in the right order, post restore.

I tried chkdsk, there was one error in a Plex folder which was fixed, but didn't affect boot - still get the BSOD after the balls circle for a little bit.

Not using secure boot - default is disabled.

Support are now in contact, asking for System reports! Let's hope they read this thread :)

It would be a good idea to provide Acronis support with a link to this thread.

Ian

Yes! I gave them a link in the support case.

Thanks for the confirmation - it is an easy thing to forget ... I have done so more than once

Ian