Issue Cloning HDD to SDD (Windows 10)
Hey folks
Been doing quite a bit of reading on this forum and have been running into a problem while attempting to clone a 1TB hdd to a 500gb sd. I only have approximately 70gb of info stored on the source hard drive so I know space is not an issue.
Summary of issue
- device is a HP Windows 10 laptop
- while attempting a clone it fails around 99% complete.
- while reviewing the log I can see I the following error (0x101f6: A format resize error) (See imaged for LOG)
- based on my research through this great forum I ran CHKDSK /f /r on my source drive (including my recovery space) and as far as I can tell there are no errors and nothing was repaired through the command
- something I’m seeing is that since I am moving from a 1TB drive to a 500GB drive, Acronis is resizing my D:Recovery drive to just enough space of the actual size of the recovery partition...not sure if this is a factor? I attempted to resize this partition through the Acronis manual partition selection however had no luck (Could only create available space however could not reassign that available space to the Recovery drive)
I reattempted the clone a few times with the same exact results
i know again through reading this great forum that there are some other options and better ways to perform the clone but I’m perplexed as to why this simple l task isn’t working. I’m positive it’s user error lol.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
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IMG_9138.jpg | 1.04 MB |


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R Kenny,
Looking at you screen capture I see that the FAT 32 partition on your drive is 260 MB in size. This is a bit of a guess on my part but the only reason I know of that this partition be that size is if the source disk is an advanced format 4K drive having 4 Kb per sector. I think it obvious that your new SSD is not an advanced format drive and therefore does not have the limitation of the advanced format drive with FAT 32 partitions as specified by MS below::
Windows partition requirements:
-
System partition
The device must contain a system partition. On GPT drives, this is known as the EFI System Partition, or the ESP. This partition is usually stored on the primary hard drive. The device boots to this partition.
The minimum size of this partition is 100 MB, and must be formatted using the FAT32 file format.
This partition is managed by the operating system, and should not contain any other files, including Windows RE tools.
Note For Advanced Format 4K Native drives (4-KB-per-sector) drives, the minimum size is 260 MB, due to a limitation of the FAT32 file format. The minimum partition size of FAT32 drives is calculated as sector size (4KB) x 65527 = 256 MB.
Advanced Format 512e drives are not affected by this limitation, because their emulated sector size is 512 bytes. 512 bytes x 65527 = 32 MB, which is less than the 100 MB minimum size for this partition.
This should be handled by True Image without any problem but looks like it may not be. Can you post a screenshot of a Windows Disk Management view so this can be verified?
You can also find out if the drive is a 4K drive using the command prompt by typing: fsutil fsinfo ntsfinfo <drive letter> Your output from the above command should be 4096 for an advanced format drive.
If you find this to be the case, that your source drive is an advanced format drive I would advance the issue to Acronis Support as 4K compatibility is built into the application but this looks to possibly be an issue with the Clone tool.
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Steve Smith wrote:Welcome to these public User Forums.
Please ensure that you have a good full disk & partitions backup of your source 1TB HDD stored on an external backup drive. This should always be the first step before any attempt at cloning!
Next, open Windows Disk Management then right-click on your C: Windows partition and take the option to Shrink Volume and check how much Windows would allow you to reduce the size by?
Ideally, you want to be able to shrink that large partition from 911.8GB to around 400GB (rather than Acronis just reducing it to 447.9GB as shown in your image of the log). Doing this should remove any need to resize your 17.69 HP Recovery partition where this format/resize issue seems to be coming from.
Steve/Echantech:
Can't thank both of you enough for your super fast replies. I am actually doing this for my father so i know he appreciates it!
Steve:
In regards to your question, Shrink Volume only allows me to get to the following:
Total Size before Shrink in MB: 933734
Size of Available shrink space in MB: 466305
Total Size after Shrink: 467429
This does not get down to the recommended 400GB but it does reduce the drive significantly. Do you think this will achieve the same results despite Acronis shrinking the drive down to 447.9?? I ran defrag and unfortunatly only made a small difference.
Echantech:
I ran the command you suggested (fsutil fsInfo ntfsInfo C:). I do not see a section titled "advanced format drive" however i can see that the "Bytes per physical sector" and Bytes per cluster are 4096
Thanks again for your help folks!
Ryan
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Your source drive is a 4K Advanced Format drive. In my opinion the partition that is giving you issue is the FAT32 System partition that is 260MB in size. Standard drives use a 100MB minimum partition size for this System partition and this partition contains the boot information for the disk.
I would suggest that you use the Manual mode of the clone utility and size the partitions on the target disk (SSD) rather than use the Automatic clone Mode. Set the partition size for the FAT32 System partition to 100 MB. This should be your first partition on the disk.
You really should post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management showing the partition layout and associated data for the source disk (HDD) so that we can further assist you. Your previous screen capture shows an unusually large Recovery partition of 17.69 GB. Normally these partitions are a few hundred MB in size so not sure whats up there but a Disk Management should reveal additional information on that.
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In regards to your question, Shrink Volume only allows me to get to the following:
Total Size before Shrink in MB: 933734
Size of Available shrink space in MB: 466305
Total Size after Shrink: 467429
This does not get down to the recommended 400GB but it does reduce the drive significantly. Do you think this will achieve the same results despite Acronis shrinking the drive down to 447.9?? I ran defrag and unfortunatly only made a small difference.
Ryan, this means that there is data in the partition which is preventing it being resized any lower but this really is the limitation of this particular tool too.
Download & install a copy of a partition manager such as the free MiniTool Partition Wizard and use this to resize the Windows C: partition to around 400GB. The tool will allow you to do the resize configuration within Windows but then require a restart to action the change.
Bob, the unusually large Recovery partition of 17.69 GB is most likely the original HP factory recovery partition to allow resetting the computer to back as how it was shipped to the user.
Ryan, if you are unlikely to ever want to put your computer back to its factory restore state, along with whatever version of Windows that was, then you could simply remove that 17GB partition (after making a backup of it for posterity).
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Steve Smith wrote:Bob, the unusually large Recovery partition of 17.69 GB is most likely the original HP factory recovery partition to allow resetting the computer to back as how it was shipped to the user.
Steve,
If that partition is an OEM Recovery partition then it should not be behind the Primary OS partition. Per MS such partitions should be placed ahead of the Primary partition. Such partitions also need special handling so as to be marked as Utility partitions. Only Windows Recovery partitions should follow the Primary partition. OEM partitions do not have labels either so I am more inclined to think that the 1.698 GB partition shown is the OEM tools partition.
Without a Disk Management screen shot it is hard to tell and even then things may not be clear.
In any case it is obvious to me that the Clone tool is not handling the partition structure of the OP's disk as it should. Support needs to become involved here to discover why that is.
It just might be prudent to scrap the Clone and run a backup/recovery operation instead. For all we know that might be broken for 4K drives too. To my recollection I have not seen anyone using a 4K drive post here in a long time so maybe there is an issue in general with 4K drive handling.
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Ryan, this means that there is data in the partition which is preventing it being resized any lower but this really is the limitation of this particular tool too.Download & install a copy of a partition manager such as the free MiniTool Partition Wizard and use this to resize the Windows C: partition to around 400GB. The tool will allow you to do the resize configuration within Windows but then require a restart to action the change.
Bob, the unusually large Recovery partition of 17.69 GB is most likely the original HP factory recovery partition to allow resetting the computer to back as how it was shipped to the user.
Ryan, if you are unlikely to ever want to put your computer back to its factory restore state, along with whatever version of Windows that was, then you could simply remove that 17GB partition (after making a backup of it for posterity)
Steve-
You guys are the best! I was able to get the Clone to complete successfully.
I used the MiniTool Partition Wizard, I was able to resize the C Drive from 900+GB down to 400 GB. From there I implemented the Acronis True Image Clone which I used the standard cloning process. I just checked this morning (ran it over night) and it cloned successfully! I wont be able to install the drive into the laptop until tonight/over the weekend, but appears this was the exact issue.
I will provide a final update once I get the hard drive installed.
Thanks again folks for all of your help and support! Greatly appreciated.
Ryan
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Ryan, thanks for the update on your progress and glad to hear that the MiniTool PW tool was able to let you resize your main OS drive and thus allow the clone to complete successfully.
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Ryan,
I would be interested to know if the new SSD has been converted into a 4K Advanced Format. Can you run the fsutil fsinfo ntsfinfo <drive letter> command on the drive and post back with the output please. In addition, can you verify what size the FAT32 partition on the drive is using Disk Management?
Glad you have the issue sorted! :)
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Enchantech wrote:Ryan,
I would be interested to know if the new SSD has been converted into a 4K Advanced Format. Can you run the fsutil fsinfo ntsfinfo <drive letter> command on the drive and post back with the output please. In addition, can you verify what size the FAT32 partition on the drive is using Disk Management?
Glad you have the issue sorted! :)
Enchantech:
Yes of course will do. I returned the laptop to my dad, but should be there this weekend and can run the command and get you the feedback!
To close this out further, I installed the drive and the laptop started right up!
Thanks again for everyone's help. Hope this will help others with similar problems.
Ryan
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