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(After cloning) Source and Target (BOTH!) do not boot - HELP!

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I received (downloaded) the TI HD version with the Crucial SSD I purchased. The TI HD version shows up as TI 2015, but I don't think it's the full TI 2015 version (since some tools aren't there).

Version: 18.0.4061 (is this build 4061?)

Background: this is a Toshiba laptop (Windows 10), internal SATA is very slow, so I was attempting an upgrade to a SSD.  Now I have a "brick" - both the source or target drives refuse to boot! The laptop is receiving power, but on power up all I hear is maybe 5 seconds worth of drive activity, then nothing! The screen is dark and there are no messages. I have power cycled it several times, but no change is behavior. I have done this with the source drive in it and also the target drive (at different times / runs of course). Now, I can't even enter BIOS setup by pressing F2!!

Additional details: I cloned a internal SATA to a external SSD (connected via USB enclosure). The SSD drive is 275GB (raw) and smaller than the internal SATA (1TB raw), but used spaced on the internal SATA is substantially smaller than 275GB (it's ~60GB used). I was able to setup the cloning using Automatic settings in TI and from what could see, it seemed to proceed fine. The intial message said, "coping partition ... 17 minutes ...", but I think the process completed in about 25 minutes (I was not paying close attention toward the end.) The internal SATA had about 60GB used - but I don't know if this duration (25 mins) is normal.

When I checked the laptop had shutdown. I proceeded to power it up and now I have a dead laptop!

To diagnose, I connected the source drive via USB to another laptop to see what's on the "original" drive. I see the folder structure and files , but the drive it NOT set to boot at all (from disk manage view)! Ditto with the target drive. This means the cloning apparently set both the drives to not bootable!

What could be wrong? At this time, I have effectively lost access to my entire laptop setup. Is this a recoverable situation? Is there a tool that I can use to make the drives bootable? I can't even get into BIOS menu to see what's going on ...

Please HELP!

 

 

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If you can't even get into the bios, that is a bad sign - completely unrelated to any hard drive problems, but possibly the sign of a failed motherboard or bios firmware issue.  

I would pull all hard drives, remove the laptop batter and disconnect AC power.  Press the power button a few times to dissipate any current in the capacitors and wait about 2 minutes.  Then plug the battery in and connect the AC charger and wait another 30 seconds and try to power on the sytsem (no hard drive attached).   IF the motherboard is functioning, you should see your bios logo and be able to get inot the bios using F2.  If you can't do this, I fear your laptop is a brick and you've sustained a hardware failure beyond the hard drives (which would not be related to Acronis).  

If you can get back into the bios, that's a good sign.  Then power off and plug the original drive in and hopefully it boots.  

How did you start the clone (from windows or the recovery media)?  Did you clone in the correct direction making sure to select the original drive as the source and the new one as the destination.  Did you start by first moving the original drive to the external USB enclosure and putting the new drive where the original was? Did you remove the original and make sure to only boot the system with the new drive (if you got that far)?  If the motherboard went belly up, none of this would really matter at this point, but if it comes back to life, these are steps that need to be taken when cloning.  Unfortunately, the Acronis software that comes from manufacturers like WD, Crucial, etc, are modified by those vendors and they are obligated to provide the support since they change the functionality of the product.  Also though, making sure to backup the system and have a safety net first would be the safe play and is recommended in the documentation:

Please see this thread (start with #2 if you get to a point where you can try to clone again):  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/125166#comment-387534

You should also visit these cloning links:

45437: Acronis True Image Does Not Clone Drives with Different Logic Sector Sizes

 

56634: Acronis True Image 2016: Cloning Disks

 

How to clone a disk with Acronis True Image 2016

duplicate - deleted

When I checked the laptop had shutdown. I proceeded to power it up and now I have a dead laptop!

So, I take it you had both drives connected at the same time when you powered up?  If so, that was mistake #1.  After a clone, the bios sees both disks as the exact same one and can be confused - even if using different connectors.  This can cause the bios to modify the Windows bootmanger in an unpleasant way.

If you follow the steps for disconnecting all drives and power and then only connecting the original drive and can get the bios to turn on, go back into the bios and make sure the internal drive is set to the first boot priority and then try to boot.

If it fails because the bootloader was corrupted by the bios for having 2 same drives connected at the same time, then you need a windows original installer disk so you can attempt a startup repair.  Hopefully the startup repair would fix the bootloader by itself.  If that doesn't do it, then you would try to manually repair it using this guide:  

http://www.kapilarya.com/fix-windows-10-master-boot-record-corrupted

Bobbo_3C0X1

Thanks for your response and your help!

I will provide as much detail as I can recall. As I said, I wasn't looking at what the TI tool was doing after it started the clone process. I came back to it *after* the laptop had shutdown.

How I started the cloning:

1. Internal SATA, remained as-is during cloning

2. Placed the (new) SSD into an external enclosure for SATA and connected to laptop using USB

3. The cloning was set to automatic (the disk 0 and disk 1 correctly recognized by TI. I accepted initialization of disk 1 to GPT; note: not MBR)

After cloning, laptop had shutdown. At that time, I should have disconnected the external SSD drive, but I did not - probably THE mistake!

So, it's correct that I powered on the laptop after the clone process had completed when both drives were connected. 

The laptop didn't boot and the screen was completely dark :-(

I then disconnected the external drive and power cycled. No boot from the original internal SATA either. Now, I knew something was really wrong!

I opened the laptop and removed the internal SATA and replaced with the SSD (potentially cloned correctly). No boot again and screen is dark.

So, lots of possibilities:

- somehow both drives became (set to) non-bootable (note: I see them both set to non-bootable using another laptop and connecting each one, one at a time. Used disk manage to check, under Windows 10)

- LCD monitor connection is fried and/or graphics connection is fried (since I can't see anything on external monitor either; that also could be since I can't switch to external monitor explicitly from KB and can't get to BIOS to do so ...)

- btw. I don't see any response to KB presses (no beeps or anything ...). Caps Lock light doesn't even come on/off when pressed!? Perhaps the KB is linked with monitor function (or lack of) - makes no sense ...

- The MB is fried! I was careful using anti-static guard and grounding, etc. when replacing drives, etc. But something has gone badly ...

I will now try removing internal hard drive and booting. Hopefully, I can get something on screen! If not, I am going to treat this as a "door-stop" :-(

 

Keep us posted. Sorry, I was logged in, but away the last few hours.  I'ts nearly midnight so I'm turning in for the evening.  I'm hoping your mobo is not actually fried and that disconnecting all of the drives and power, dissipating the remaing current, and reconnecting just the battery and then AC power will at least get you back into the bios so we can try some more tomorrow.