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Cloning Successful, Booting Failed Using Multiple Cloning Methods

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I am trying to update my wife's HP Pavilion 15-cs00xxxxx from the original 1TB 2.5" HDD to a Crucial 500GB M.2 NVMe Gen4 2280.  I verified on the Crucial site that the M.2 SSD should work with her laptop.  I tried to use the clone feature using two different methods:

1) Both HDD and SSD were installed inside of the laptop.  I tried to boot twice, once with the HDD still installed and BIOS changed to boot from SSD and the other time with the HDD removed.

2) HDD was inside of the laptop and SSD was plugged in via USB-C enclosure.  After the clone, I removed the HDD and installed the SSD inside of the laptop.

Each time, I would get BSOD with the error message "inaccessible boot device".  

 

There are three partitions on Disk 0 (see attached file): 

Disk 0 partition 1:  260MB...I think this is for EFI system, but I do not know what that is

Disk 0 partition 4:  980MB...I think this is Recovery Partition 

Windows C:  914 GB...obviously this is the primary and boot, etc.

Unallocated:  15.65GB...this was the HP recovery partition that I had deleted previously

 

All three allocated partitions were cloned over successfully so I am not sure why it won't boot from the SSD.  Would someone be able to help me figure what I am missing or doing wrong?  Thanks in advance!

 

I have also attached an photo of my BIOS settings, in case that helps to diagnose the issue.

 

Edit (19-Oct):  Today I tried using the rescue media method to do the clone with the HDD inside and SSD plugged in via USB-C enclosure.  No difference in result, still getting "inaccessible boot device" BSOD.

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IMG_20221018_110400.jpg 2.15 MB
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The first method failed because booting a UEFI system requires the boot device to be set to Windows boot manager, not a particular drive. Also, you should remove the old drive once the clone has been completed.

The second method will not work because Windows will not boot from a USB drive; cloning to a USB drive results in an unbootable system.

It is unclear from your post how the clone was undertaken: was it from within Windows or using recover media. If you used recovery media, was it ISO downloaded from your Acronis account (Linux), or was it created from within ATI 2020; if the latter, what method did you use, the simple method (uses Windows RE) or the advance method, which is either Windows PE on Linux. 

Linux recovery media, or cloning using ATI windows app (which reboots into a temporary Linux installation) can be problematic as there may not be device drivers for some hardware - Linux licensing precludes including proprietary drivers.

While cloning can work, there is always a risk of something going wrong (including user error), therefore making a backup then recovering to the new drive is recommended by Acronis MPVs. If you really want to do a clone, make a backup first.

In your situation the best option is to go with standard recovery media, which uses Windows RE, so you have all the necessary drivers. When you boot from the recovery media make sure the selected boot device has UEFI in its description: for a USB flash drive there should be two listing, on for the flash drive (used for Legacy/BIOS) and one for UEFI (used for UEFI) using that flash drive. I would use the recovery media to create a new backup, then remove the HDD, then reboot using the recovery media, and recover to the M.2 drive. 

Booting in legacy/BIOS mode on a system such as yours which is set up for UEFI can result in an unbootable system.

Hope this helps. If not, let us know!

Ian

In addition to Ian's comments:

Have you tried installing the new NVMe M.2 SSD drive in the laptop alongside the existing HDD and booting into Windows with that drive present so that any additional device drivers are identified and installed?

NVMe M.2 drives typically require using UEFI BIOS boot mode which in turn suggests using GPT for the drive partition scheme.

How does your original HDD boot from the BIOS into Windows, is this already using UEFI?

You can check this by running the msinfo32 command from within Windows and looking at the BIOS mode value shown in the right panel of the report this produces.  You should be seeing UEFI and not Legacy.

Next, once you have done the above, make a full disk backup of the HDD to an external drive (which is always strongly recommended before using cloning) then take the approach below:

First, make a new 'Simple' rescue media to pick up any new device drivers for the SSD and test booting the laptop from this to check that both the HDD and SSD are both shown in that rescue environment.

If the above step is successful, then shutdown the laptop, remove the HDD to leave only the new SSD installed.

Next, boot the laptop from the rescue media with the external backup drive connected, ensuring you boot in UEFI mode.

Use the Tools > Add new disk option of the rescue environment to prepare the SSD using GPT partition scheme.

Restore / recover the backup from the HDD to the new SSD as a Disk level restore (by selecting just the top 'Disk' tick box, which will select all items below that level).

Once the restore is complete, disconnect the rescue media and storage drive, then restart the laptop and try booting into Windows.  If there are any problems, check that the BIOS boot option is set to 'Windows Boot Manager' from the new SSD then try again.

See forum topic: Steve migrate NVMe SSD where I have documented (with images) the process that I have used multiple times for my own laptops using Backup & Recovery. 

Thanks guys for your posts.  It is indeed a UEFI system.  Originally I had taken the clone from the Windows app.  But after your posts, I started fresh:

1) Installed M.2 SSD into the laptop (HDD was obviously already in the machine as the current boot drive)

2) Created backup of HDD on to another USB-C external drive (2.5" SSD)

2) Created "Simple" rescue media onto flash drive

3) Turned off laptop and removed the HDD

4) Turned on laptop and booted into flash drive with the "Simple" rescue media

5) Used Add New Disk Option to prepare M.2 SSD using GPT partition scheme

6) Attempted to restore from the 2.5" SSD and then ran into a problem:

As you can see, Disk 1, which is my M.2 SSD is greyed out so I cannot restore back to it.  The only disk that is not greyed out is the backup 2.5" SSD drive connected via USB-C.  Here is what each disk is in the image attached:

Disk 1 - 500GB M.2 SSD installed inside of laptop (this is the drive I want to use as my new boot drive)

Disk 2 - 240GB 2.5" SSD connected via USB-C (backup drive)

Disk 3 - 32GB USB flash drive (rescue media)

Any ideas on what to do next?

What is the size of your original Windows HDD and how much used space on that drive?  I would suspect that Acronis deems the new SSD too small and hence is not offering it as an option though that is confounded by it showing the external smaller SSD as an option!

Did you look at the Log in the rescue media while you were still in that environment?  It may offer some more clues?

Steve Smith wrote:

What is the size of your original Windows HDD and how much used space on that drive?  I would suspect that Acronis deems the new SSD too small and hence is not offering it as an option though that is confounded by it showing the external smaller SSD as an option!

Did you look at the Log in the rescue media while you were still in that environment?  It may offer some more clues?

The original HDD is a 1TB that is only using about 150GB.

Odd thing is, I couldn't find a log anywhere.  I also tried to do another backup while in simple rescue media, but no luck, the M.2 SSD was still greyed out when I tried to recover.

The Log is shown as an option in the main Acronis rescue media GUI.

Sorry it takes so long for me to respond, I'm in the US and it's my wife's laptop so I can only get access to it when she is at work or it's the early hours of the morning.  I borrowed a friend's 4TB HDD external drive to backup to so I can eliminate the compression from the original to the backup as an issue.  So now, the original is a 1TB HDD (located internally), backup drive is a 4TB HDD (USB-A), and the target for the recovery is a 500GB M.2 SSD (located internally).  Also, the backup size came out to be 196GB.

Using Rescue Media, I did the backup and got the following logs:

I also took a picture of the disk partitions as well hoping that may shed some additional light:

 Lastly, as you can see, the M.2 SSD is still greyed out:

The last thing I tried was to use Acronis in Windows to recover, but no luck there either:

I'm running another backup right now to get more information on the File System Corrupted and Invalid File Reference line from the log.  One thing to note, is that Windows 11 does boot normally from the original internal 1TB HDD.

For reference, you can save the log from the rescue media if you right-click on the top line in bold text which will give a small menu with the option to Save as or Save all (as text files) after which you can select the location to save to.

For the file system corruption issue, do the following:

Please create an Acronis system report zip file then extract the disks.txt (disk report) from the zip archive and use the File > Upload option to attach it to this forum topic.  This should help identify any file system error if present and lead to how to resolve it.

KB 58820: Acronis True Image: Collecting System Report

KB 1638: Acronis Disk Report

Example: this disk report shows a file system error for H: 2ndVolume 1.8TB drive / partition as indicated by 'e' shown in column C at the right side.

DA-API report version 3

          PS         Speed IFace Hs-Bs-Tg Model                     
Num  NT    L9NO  Size FSsize Free FS     Type            Label       ABCHSV Error
---- ----- ---- ----- ----- ----- ------ --------------- ----------- ------ ----------
1-   d(4) GPT   1.8T RAID  0-0-0    ST2000DM006-2DM164 CC26   
                                  MBR                                ------
                                  GPTpri                             -----v
                                  MSresr                             -----v
  -2       --GH  1.8T  1.8T  561G NTFS   07 NTFS, HPFS   2ndVolume.. --e--V

Partition 1-2: file system
  FS:                NTFS
  File System Error 0x70018: MFT bitmap is corrupted.

Running CHKSK H: /F is recommended to try to fix the bitmap corruption issue.

I ran the backup again, but this time I didn't get the previous issue.  I have attached the log and the disk report.

I also ran a chkdsk /f.

 

Update:  After running chksk /f, I tried to run another another backup and when I went to check if the M.2 SSD was available for recovery, it was!  Running the recovery right now and will report back shortly.

Update:  I removed the 1TB HDD (internal) and unplugged the USB Rescue Media and 4TB HDD external with the backup.  Still no luck...

Also providing the following in case this helps:

Attachment Size
611654-355850.txt 381.51 KB
611654-355851.log 453 bytes

Thanks for the further information.

The disks report shows no issues / errors.

The log was only for the successful backup operation with no mention of the subsequent recovery you performed.

The subsequent backups I performed resulted in the same logs.  Everything seems to be performing as it should, and yet, I am still getting the BSOD when I go to boot from the M.2 SSD.

Unfortunately, I do not have access to that laptop again until Sunday.  I'll try everything again one more time when I have access to it:

1) diskpart --> clean M.2 SSD

2) chkdsk /f current boot drive (1TB HDD internal)

3) Using rescue media, Add new disk for M.2 SSD (GPT)

4) Backup to external drive

5) Grab log and disk report

6) Using rescue media, recover to M.2 SSD

There are only two remaining question I have:

1) Should I remove the 1TB HDD before performing the recovery step?  This previous time, I left the HDD in during recovery, but removed it prior to booting from the M.2 SSD.

2) Does everything appear to be correct in the BIOS settings?

Sorry for the amateurish level questions, but considering it seems like I tried everything and it's still not working, I want to be sure I didn't miss a small detail.

1.  Yes, remove the HDD before doing the recovery.

2.  If the BIOS settings are correct then the rescue media will boot fine with the HDD removed and offer the M.2 SSD as the target for recovery.

After the recovery, check the BIOS settings again to ensure that the OS boot manager is shown as the top UEFI option as needed to boot correctly.