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Cloned HDD onto SSD using Acronis Bootable Media - No Errors, but Won't Boot.

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I purchased True Image 2020 today to handle cloning a 500 GB HDD onto a 500 GB SSD. Per instructions found on Acronis.com, I removed the source HDD and placed it in a USB enclosure. I installed the new SSD in the computer (my son's Lenovo ThinkPad T480 running Windows 10 Pro, 64 bit, ver. 1903). I booted the system from a USB flash drive containing the Acronis Bootable Media ISO image downloaded from Acronis.com (and burned to the flash drive using Rufus). 

The computer booted right up from the flash drive. The Acronis app recognized both the SSD (now installed internally) and the HDD (now in a USB enclosure). I gave the command to clone the HDD to the SSD and let it run to completion, after which the Acronis app reported that the cloning was successful. 

After reading the success message, I disconnected the flash drive containing the Acronis Bootable Media and the USB enclosure containing the original OEM HDD, then rebooted - no joy.

If there is a checklist for disk cloning, please point me to it. I believe that what I did should have worked. I have no clue why it didn't. I mean, if you get a "success" message from the Acronis cloner (with the source external and the target internal), then surely it ought to boot up, shouldn't it?

Running out of time, I shut everything down, put the original HDD back in the notebook and it booted right up. Then I drove my son back to college and told him we'd try again in about a month. 

Any suggestions? Or explanations?  

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Difficult to know what the issue is. One possibility is that when booting from the installation media you selected UEFI when the OS was set up for Legacy, or selected Legacy when it is set up for UEFI.

Sometimes when drives are replaced the computer gets confused where it is supposed to be booting from (should not be a problem with Legacy system with only one drive); for UEFI the boot device should be Windows and for legacy systems it should be the drive on which the OS is installed.

It is possible that there could be something not as it should be with the recovery media you used. Using recovery media created from within ATI 2020 can produce media that is custom tuned to the PC, as the default should be Windows PE (which will include all drivers needed for the PC to work properly) rather than the recovery media download form Acronis which is based on Linux - and it may not have some proprietary drivers that are needed for it to work with the PC. However as you managed to load the recovery media and carryout the cloning, this is not a plausible explanation.

One thing that may not be in the checklist is before doing the clone, you should create a backup of the HDD just in case something goes wrong during the cloning (does not happen often but has been known particularly when doing the clone form within Windows rather than using recovery media - if it then goes to a temporary Linux installation).

Ian

Boot the PC into the bios.  Enable the Advanced Bios settings and find the Boot tab.  Select the boot tab and scroll down until you find the Boot Order or Priority list. 

If the PC boots via UEFI then the first boot order device in the list needs to be Windows Boot Manager.

If the PC boots via Legacy MBR bios then the first boot order device needs to be the new SSD.

After making adjustments, Save and exit the bios.  PC should now boot into Windows.

IanL-S wrote:

Difficult to know what the issue is. One possibility is that when booting from the installation media you selected UEFI when the OS was set up for Legacy, or selected Legacy when it is set up for UEFI.

The notebook uses UEFI for system configuration instead of BIOS. I selected UEFI.

IanL-S wrote:

Sometimes when drives are replaced the computer gets confused where it is supposed to be booting from (should not be a problem with Legacy system with only one drive); for UEFI the boot device should be Windows and for legacy systems it should be the drive on which the OS is installed.

I tried setting the UEFI to boot from the physical drive and from the Windows Boot Manager. Neither worked.

Enchantech wrote:

Boot the PC into the bios.  Enable the Advanced Bios settings and find the Boot tab.  Select the boot tab and scroll down until you find the Boot Order or Priority list. 

If the PC boots via UEFI then the first boot order device in the list needs to be Windows Boot Manager.

If the PC boots via Legacy MBR bios then the first boot order device needs to be the new SSD.

After making adjustments, Save and exit the bios.  PC should now boot into Windows.

The notebook uses UEFI. I tried setting it to boot from the physical drive (wrong for UEFI, I now understand) and I tried setting it to boot from Windows Boot Manager (correct setting for UEFI - thanks for the headsup on that). Neither worked. Unfortunately, it'll be some weeks before I can try again, as son is off to university. Next time around: 1. Build the Bootable Media from within Acronis True Image (as opposed to downloading from acronis.com). 2. Triple-check that recovery media is set to use UEFI. 3. Triple-check that the UEFI is set to boot from Windows Boot Manager. Other than that, I don't know what to do or check for next time around.

I think your problem stems from the fact that you used the ISO from your account to create the media.  I believe that ISO creates a Linux based version of recovery media.  It is provided for those whom have older systems that run older OS's.

Building the media from within Acronis will allow you to use either WinPE or WinRE as a base.  I feel your success rate will be much higher going that route.

One word of caution there is use a new blank flash drive when you create the media.  Many have found that those that have been used before and manipulated by other apps like Rufus will not work.  They produce errors or will not boot.  If you must use a previously used flash drive then use Windows Disk Management to Delete the volume then, use it again to create New simple volume formatted as FAT32.  Make sure the flash drive is no more than 32GB is total size as well.