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Acronis 2019 - cloned system disk does not boot

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Hello!

I have been a having an issue with Acronis 2019 this past two weeks.

I clone my C: (windows 10) boot drive as I have done many times with Acronis previous versions, but the cloned drive does not boot.

  • Dell Optix 9010 tower running Windows 10 Home with 16GB RAM.
  • Primary (System) C: is 500 GB HDD (NOT SDD).    I installed windows 10 on this drive.
  • I have a portable external drive unit where I plugin an identical hard drive (500 GB HDD)
  • I create an Acronis boot disk (previously I used a CD in previous versions of Acronis).

When the system boots, I boot from the Acronis media (so windows is not running).  I select tools and clone, select my Windows 10 system drive (RAID, SATA connection) as source.  Target (SATA connection in portal disk holder, comes up as USB on TARGET).

I run the clone, takes about 30 minutes.

Previous to Acronis 2019, I would then safe shutdown the PC and portable drive and unplug the original windows 10 C: drive and replace it with the cloned drive so it is now C: (boot) and power up.  I removed the Acronis boot CD and started the system.  Windows 10 -- the cloned copy-- would come up fine.

With Acronis 2019, the target cloned drive no longer boots.

I tried many times over the weekend using automatic mode and manual mode and nothing worked. 

Might be important *** In all cases when I displayed the cloned drive it included a small partition on the target (at the far left side of the hard drive schematic) that does NOT appear on my source drive.  I believe this partition is preventing boot.   ***

I tried formatting the target drive and even doing a wipedrive first, same results, disk is not bootable.

The ONLY change I can think of, besides that I am now using version 2019, is that I create the boot media on a USB rather than CD, but it boots and puts me into the Acronis interface.

What I need:

Boot system into Acronis USB (or CD/DVD).

Clone Windows 10 system drive (the boot drive) to the same sized 500 GB target in the USB sata connection docker drive unit.)    

Power down, swap target drive to C: on the tower and boot; windows 10 comes up.

(This is what is not happeinng, the clone does not boot)

Can you please tell me what I am doing wrong?   I’ve relied on Acronis for seven years and this is the first time I cannot create a bootable system disk clone and I desperately need to be able to do so.

Has something changed in Acronis 2019 so there are different best practices to clone a boot disk and the target needs some other step to be bootable?   I thought this was a byte-by-byte clone

What I do is install a new OS (say, windows 10, do all my configurations, and then make several bootable clones so in the event of a boot drive hardware failure) which has happened (I can swap out a drive and be back up and running).   

ANY help, best practices, advise would be VERY appreciated.   I worked all weekend on this, I’m a career computer guy and I cannot get past this issue – and I need to.  

Also please let me know if I can provide more information, screen shots, etc.

Help!

Cheers,

Robert Gillis

 

 

 

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Robert, welcome to these public User Forums.

Might be important *** In all cases when I displayed the cloned drive it included a small partition on the target (at the far left side of the hard drive schematic) that does NOT appear on my source drive.  I believe this partition is preventing boot.   ***

When you see the small partition, what is it described as?  Is it shown as 'EFI System Partition' or do you have a partition by this name on your source working drive?

The most obvious reason for problems from your description is that you are not booting the Acronis Rescue Media USB or CD/DVD in the correct BIOS mode to match how your Windows OS boots.

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

Hi Steve, thank you for the fast response.   I really appreciate it.

The small partition on the cloned drive shows up as a EFI, which is not on the source boot drive (see attached screen shot)

My Windows 10 system, bios method according to the system command msinfo32  is legacy.

I formatted the USB drive and using Acronis 2019 I re-created the rescue media (in Windows mode, not Linux) on a USB stick 

I attached a snapshot of the c:\boot drive I am trying to clone.

Once the rescue media is created I will boot in Legacy mode and try the clone again and advise if successful.

Thanks for your help --- I will keep you updated :)

Cheers,

Robert

 

 

 

 

Attachment Size
504574-169876.JPG 22.9 KB

I noticed that there is no recovery partition on your system disk. That probably is not a factor in the issues you are having.

It is clear from the information provided that you system is set up in legacy mode but the recovery took place in UEFI mode. So your PC supports both. When use the recovery media, at the boot devise selection stage it should appear twice, one as UEFI and the other as legacy - you should use the legacy mode.

Hopefully this will produce a bootable PC.

Ian

Robert, it sounds like you are booting the rescue media in UEFI mode - the rescue media can boot in both legacy or UEFI mode, but is determined by your bios. 

How you boot the rescue media determines how the restore will create the disk layout (UEFI boot of rescue media will create a UEFI restore and legacy boot of rescue media will create a legacy restore).  As you have a legacy OS, but a clone with an unexpected EFI partition, this likely means that you booted the rescue media in UEFI mode.

59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

As your existing system is legacy, if you want to keep the restore legacy, you need to boot the rescue media in legacy mode too. It is probably defaulting to UEFI mode because your bios supports it though.  To get around this, use your one-time boot menu (could be F12, esc, del, F1 or something else - it varies from vendor to vendor).  Alternatively, disable UEFI mode in the bios which should force the rescue media to boot in legacy mode.

Thank you all!

Update...  Cannot create rescue USB but I was able to create a rescue CD and successfully clone the disk (and it boots) although the process is a bit tedious.

 

Created a USB rescue disk (automatic)

Rebooted
F12
Boot Options
Boot from USB (not the EFI listed but just "USB")

"Selected boot device failed.  press any key to reboot system."

I'd tried booting in EFI Saturday and it DOES boot the rescue media but as you said that's not the correct boot mode.  The clone it produces adds the partition that prevents booting.

 

=====================

 

Decided to try a CD, these were the steps:

Run Acronis 2019

Rescue Media Builder
    Choose Bootable Media Type: WinPe-Based Media
    Select architecture and toolkit: Architecture 64 Bit, Select     Windows 8, 8.1, 10
    Install Windows ADK to create rescue media
    Downloaded adksetup.exe, selected ALL options, installed onto PC
    Downloaded adwinpesetup.exe; ran setup, selected all defaults and installed onto PC
    Rescue wizard continues; no drivers added.  next
    Chose DVD drive this time (with a blank CD)
    Successful creation of rescue media
    
Reboot.
    Boot from CD (only one option for this)
    Acronis 2019 loads.
    Select Clone
    Source: C (Windows 10) drive
    "Unable to lock the disk.  Boot your computer from a Linux based bootable media and try again."
    Waited a few minutes and clicked next again.
    Seemed to be OK.  Close target HDD drive in portal disk drive (USB)
    Cloning process successful.
    
    Shut down PC, unplugged, swapped newly cloned taarget drive for source drive.
    
    Reboot computer; date is wrong.   Went into setup and corrected date and time
    
    Windows 10 boots from cloned disk.
    

Thank you for guidance and article -- I can't get a USB to boot so gave up on that but was able to create a rescue CD.    I wish it was not so complicated and wish it did not require the windows ADK software to be found and downloaded separately; I miss easy creation of a boot CD/USB.

Is there a correct way to create a rescue USB and "tell it" that I want it to boot only in Legacy?

That aside, I AM able to successfully clone the disk and it boots, so I am all set.  Thanks again for a great product and fast responses from everyone!

Cheers,

Robert
    
    
    
    
    

Excellent - glad it worked out in the end.  If you want to figure out the USB, let us know.  

First, how big is the USB drive? Some older motherboards only boot USB drives 32GB or smaller (especially in legacy mode).  If you are using a larger one, try with a smaller one that is 32GB or less.  

Second, I'd wipe the USB with diskpart /clean and then recreate the rescue media using the ADK method you did for the CD.  You already have it installed now and I love ADK way more than the default Linux rescue media (although I'm not sure if you're first try was with the Linux version or the WinRE version from your Windows Rescue Environment - recovery partition as the source).

That will blow away any potentially hidden partitions that may be preventing bootability as Windows will typically only see one partition on a USB flash drive (well at least up until Windows 10 1803).  Then go into computer management >> disk management >>> and initialize the usb flash dive as MBR (legacy) and then format it as FAT32.  Then create the rescue media again using the ADK method.

If it still doesn't boot, the problem is probably the bios.  Your system appears to support UEFI and legacy.  Your OS is legacy, but your bios probably wants things to default to UEFI (UEFI tends to get priority on motherboards that support it). 

The fix is either to disable UEFI and only use legacy mode (CSM) if possible.  Or, if you want to leave UEFI enabled, you may also have secure boot enabled and should disable it so that it will allow legacy booting with your USB drive. 

But hey, if the CD is working - awesome.  At least you have a working rescue media!!

Thank you!   I agree my system is legacy boot and seems to really want to force UEFI.   I'd like to not try to disable UEFI because I'm a big fan of "Something works, don't fix it" so I'll leave that alone....

I'll give the USB a try (thanks for detailed instructions; I believe the USB is 32GB) and see if that works.

 

If it does, great, if not, I made detailed instructions for creating a boot CD that works so it's all good.

 

Many, many thanks for helping me solve this, I really appreciate it!

 

Robert