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Acronis Bootable Agent is waiting for removable devices

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I am trying to clone from my old HDD to a M.2 SSD ( Kingston KC2500 1TB M.2 SSD Stick ). I chose the "Source disk" which is the old internal HDD, then I selected the M.2 disk that I want to clone to "Destination disk". I click "ok" for the "confirm deletion of all partitions on the destination drive" ( which is fine because it is a blank new m.2 ssd ). I then view the "before and after" cloning summary, then I click on "proceed". My computer then wants to restart and boot into Acronis. So I restart. Acronis boots up and I see a progression loading bar... After a few seconds I get this error message. "Acronis Bootable Agent is waiting for removable devices" and whether I choose yes or no, the cloning process just ends. I am not sure what to do :( Please can anybody help? Has anyone else had this problem?

 

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Kyle, welcome to these public User Forums.

The core issue you are seeing is caused simply because when you elect to clone from your HDD to the new M.2 SSD from the Windows ATI GUI application, it has to restart the computer and launch a small Linux based OS environment from which to perform the clone, but that Linux OS has no support for your M.2 SSD.

You need to create the Acronis Windows PE version of the Rescue Media and use this to boot your computer to do the cloning.  Note: NVMe M.2 drives require the computer to boot using UEFI / GPT mode and the rescue media needs to use the same mode too.

See the following reference documents.
KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media
KB 61632: Acronis True Image 2019: how to create bootable media - for details of the 3 different types of rescue media.  Default Simple mode uses Windows Recovery Environment, then Advanced mode offers the older Linux media or Windows PE (using the Windows ADK).

Personally, I would recommend using Backup & Recovery for this type of migration, not using Cloning.

The steps in outline are as follows:

  1. Create the Acronis Rescue Media (use the Simple option for WinPE)
  2. Test booting your PC from the rescue media, ensuring you understand how to boot in UEFI mode and can 'see' your current drive and an external backup drive to hold a full disk backup image.
  3. Make a new full Disk backup of the working drive to an external drive as a one-off backup action.
  4. Shutdown the PC, remove the current drive and install the new one.
  5. Boot from the Acronis Rescue Media with your backup drive connected.
  6. Recover the Backup from step 3. to the new drive.
  7. Check the Log messages before exiting from the rescue media (all logs are lost on exit) to check all is OK.
  8. If all ok, disconnect the external drive, remove the rescue media and restart the PC normally from the new drive.
  9. When you have confirmed all is ok with the new drive, make a new backup again to include any new device drivers installed for the new drive.

See KB 61621: Acronis True Image 2019: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

Kyle, can you still tell us the version / build information from the Account page in the ATI GUI as it will help us to better understand what the equivalent full version is?

Hello,

We have a very similar issue but in our case we're trying to clone a 250GB SSD to a larger 500GB SSD. Do you recommend the same steps? Both drives are internal and we'd like to keep them in the computer if possible. We're using Acronis 2016. Would a newer version of Acronis make this process easier?

Angela, welcome to these public User Forums.

Yes, the same steps are recommended but you should not attempt to boot with both drives still installed internally if they are identical in content!

Perform the same steps as given above so that you remove the 250GB SSD and replace it by the larger 500GB SSD for doing the Recovery and after you are sure that Windows is booting fine from the new SSD, connect the original SSD via an external USB adapter or dock then reformat that drive to use it as a non OS drive.

Windows Disk Management may not let you delete the hidden / system partitions on the 250GB SSD, so you could either use a third-party Partition manager program, or else, you can use the Add New Disk program provided in the Tools options for ATI 2016.

Provided your ATI 2016 Rescue Media can see your SSD drives and an external backup drive to use for storing backups, then you should not need a later version of ATI to do this.

Hello !

I revive this thread as I went into the exact same issue, trying to clone a HDD onto a SSD (wrong installation, as Windows never found the SSD on installation).

I tried to make a Rescue Media from Acronis but once booted on it, I still don't see the NVMe drive.

I'm using... kofkof... Acronis True Image 2014. Does an upgrade to the latest would do the trick or is it just about misconfiguration of the Rescue Media from my version? :P

Best regards

Paul

Paul, welcome to these public User Forums.

NVMe SSD drives typically use UEFI for correct operation and also require device drivers to be present in the Acronis Rescue Media.

ATI 2014 pre-dates the introduction of these types of drives and has no support for them, so you would need to try to create the Windows PE version of rescue media along with injecting additional device drivers to it - something that is much more difficult on such an old version.

If you can get hold of a later version of ATI such as 2019, then you have much better support for NVMe and better choices for making WinPE rescue media with the necessary drivers.

The last version of ATI with perpetual licenses was ATI 2021 after which Acronis have gone to a subscription only model with Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office (ACPHO) and are also bundling in extra antivirus type components!

Steve Smith wrote:

Kyle, welcome to these public User Forums.

The core issue you are seeing is caused simply because when you elect to clone from your HDD to the new M.2 SSD from the Windows ATI GUI application, it has to restart the computer and launch a small Linux based OS environment from which to perform the clone, but that Linux OS has no support for your M.2 SSD.

You need to create the Acronis Windows PE version of the Rescue Media and use this to boot your computer to do the cloning.  Note: NVMe M.2 drives require the computer to boot using UEFI / GPT mode and the rescue media needs to use the same mode too.

See the following reference documents.
KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media
KB 61632: Acronis True Image 2019: how to create bootable media - for details of the 3 different types of rescue media.  Default Simple mode uses Windows Recovery Environment, then Advanced mode offers the older Linux media or Windows PE (using the Windows ADK).

Personally, I would recommend using Backup & Recovery for this type of migration, not using Cloning.

The steps in outline are as follows:

  1. Create the Acronis Rescue Media (use the Simple option for WinPE)
  2. Test booting your PC from the rescue media, ensuring you understand how to boot in UEFI mode and can 'see' your current drive and an external backup drive to hold a full disk backup image.
  3. Make a new full Disk backup of the working drive to an external drive as a one-off backup action.
  4. Shutdown the PC, remove the current drive and install the new one.
  5. Boot from the Acronis Rescue Media with your backup drive connected.
  6. Recover the Backup from step 3. to the new drive.
  7. Check the Log messages before exiting from the rescue media (all logs are lost on exit) to check all is OK.
  8. If all ok, disconnect the external drive, remove the rescue media and restart the PC normally from the new drive.
  9. When you have confirmed all is ok with the new drive, make a new backup again to include any new device drivers installed for the new drive.

See KB 61621: Acronis True Image 2019: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

Hi, may I ask.. I have a mini PC with flashdisc (64GB, internal memory) and I added SSD. I need to copy the Windows, as the flashdisk is too slow.. I read you manual and my question is .. I cannot disconnect the flashdisk, I have a feeling. May I do it without disconnecting it? 

Vítězslav Herman wrote:

Hi, may I ask.. I have a mini PC with flashdisc (64GB, internal memory) and I added SSD. I need to copy the Windows, as the flashdisk is too slow.. I read you manual and my question is .. I cannot disconnect the flashdisk, I have a feeling. May I do it without disconnecting it? 

Welcome to these public User Forums. 

If your 64GB flash disk is permanently soldered to your mini PC motherboard, then you need to check the options in your BIOS settings to ensure that you will be able to select the SSD for where the Windows Boot Manager will boot the Windows OS from?

The same steps apply apart from not being able to remove the 64GB disk but with the extra step of needing to go into the BIOS settings before attempting to boot into Windows after doing the Recovery of the backup image from the original drive.