Question about Cloning process (copying and merging partitions)
I noticed that the estimated time left for a clone process I'm using as part of an SSD upgrade hasn't really changed and it's showing 1d 20h remaining for an HDD close that is less than 2TB. It's stuck on 5 of 10 stage in coying and merging partitions. I was curious and opened up task manager to check performance and I can see activity on the HDD but Disk 1 (USB) is not showing any activity at all.
What is Acronis doing in this copying and merging partition stage that would have it reading from the HDD but not engaging the SSD Disk 1 connected via Sata to USB cable?
This may all be perfectly normal operation but I was just curious...
Welcome to these public User Forums.
Sorry but more questions than answers here:
What version of Acronis software are you using? Is it ATI 2020 as per this forum, or is a free OEM version of ATI provided with your new SSD drive?
What is the size of the target SSD drive? Is it also a 2TB drive or is it smaller or larger?
What is the actual size of the used space on the source HDD?
What type of computer is involved here? Is it a desktop / tower PC or is it a laptop PC?
I’m using the free version which was created for Crucial SSD customers. I assume I’m using the latest version since I just downloaded it this past weekend.
HDD and SDD are both 2TB units. HDD has probably 1.4G used.
I’m using an HP desktop system. Envy 750-114.
The clone finished without errors in much less time than Acronis was indicating but it did run overnight.
Unfortunately, when I connected the SSD after the cloning process, it would not boot up I tried a number of things but I think the boot record was jacked up, possibly by Acronis, so I’m letting a local computer repair professional I trust fix it for me. They pick it up tomorrow.
You may have come up against one of the major problems when cloning a Windows OS disk. The cloning process will produce an unbootable drive if the drive on which the clone is being created is not attached to a SATA port or M.2 port. To get bootable "clone" you need to either create a backup on the old drive and then restore it to the new drive once you have swapped out the old drive (this will require creation of recovery media and using the recovery media to recover the backup to the new drive.
While I have successfully used live cloning (that is using the Windows Acronis application) of a OS drive the nature of the process is such that it can result in both the old and new drive not being bootable. That is why you should always create a backup first. In my case I was cloning an IDE HDD to a SATA HDD.
Ian
Agreed. It would be nice if both Crucial and Acronis were a bit clearer and helpful in helping users to avoid an unbootable drive. I feel like I’ve been a bit mislead and have wasted valuable time.
I understand the way you feel. For ATI/ACPHO the documentation is not as clear as it should be. The user manual does not include everything you really need to know; a lot of critical information is relegated to Knowledge Base documents (which can be hard to find). Don't know what information Crucial provide, but I suspect some of it is not fully informed.
The online instructions that come with Crucial SSD are a joke.
They recommend connecting the SSD drive via Sata to USB cable and then running the clone software. I wonder how this can actually work for anyone? It certainly didn’t work for me. Out of frustration, I’m paying a third party to fix it. I’m experienced enough to have done this myself and I could have saved a lot of time and some money in the process with proper documentation and procedure.
Between Crucial and Acronis, they should do a much better job of improving the consumer experience and setting proper expectations. I’m not sure how they can defend the fairy tail they perpetuate with their easy clone documentation. Honest and accurate documentation seems called for. I don’t understand how companies like this operate with seemingly little regard for user experience. In today’s competitive landscape, it’s very surprising. Will I think twice before buying a Crucial or Acronis product after this experience? You bet!
To add my two penny's worth here...
I very rarely ever using cloning at all - there are a number of disadvantages in doing so, not the least being the risk of ending up with a non-bootable system, especially if a wrong choice is made for source & target drives.
My personal preference which has never failed me to date is in using Backup & Recovery. This has one significant benefit immediately in removing the working source drive well away from any potential damage, corruption or over-writing etc.
The steps are simple:
- Make a full disk & partitions backup of the source drive to an external backup drive.
- Make the Acronis bootable Rescue Media and test this by booting it in the same BIOS boot mode as used by the Windows OS. Check all drives can be seen.
- Assuming step 2 is good. Shutdown, remove the source drive, replace it with the new drive. Put the original drive in a cupboard for safety!
- Boot from the rescue media and restore the backup created in step 1. using the Disk level option (this avoids having to set the location of each individual partition etc).
- Check the Log information in the rescue environment that all is good.
- Disconnect the external drive and rescue media, then restart Windows and check that all is good with booting from the new drive.
The above has worked fine when upgrading NVMe M.2 SSD's as well as normal HDD to SSD migrations, and is good practice for the event of any disk failure in the future. The only other recommendation with the above would be to disconnect any other drives that are not directly involved in the process - this again is to avoid accidentally selecting an incorrect target drive for the recovery and thus losing data!