Skip to main content

Can't boot from SSD after backup, attempting to redo clone fails inexplicably.

Thread needs solution

Hello everyone.

Yesterday a nice shiny new Crucial 1TB M.2 SSD manifested in my life together with a code for Acronis True Image HD 2015. I previously was using a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive that is coming to the end of its life. I plugged in the new SSD into my M.2 slot and installed Acronis. It was recognised in the BIOS and in the Windows 10 disk manager, so I cloned my C: drive to it. After doing the whole restart and Acronis Loader business I tried to boot from it but got the flickering login screen that wouldn't let me do anything.

I was told that this was caused by having two boot drives connected at once so I unplugged my old hard disk and set it in the BIOS to boot from the SSD. Result - Windows doesn't load properly and gets stuck on the spinny circle thing. On a subsequent attempt it says it "cannot find BOOTMGR."

I attempted to redo the clone image using Acronis, this fails completely; it restarts to commence the clone then after 30 seconds of "preparing" inexplicably restarts and goes into Windows (booting from the old hard drive.)

Completely losing all faith. Feel like I've been sold a bill of goods. Someone tell me how to fix this without the misery of going through a Windows reinstallation (which isn't likely since I've lost my Windows 7 disk.)

I tried to download EaseUS to see if different software would work but EaseUS free edition is horrible crippleware.

0 Users found this helpful

Oscillating Hazelnut, welcome to these user forums.

Please see KB 2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products for how your free Crucial version of ATIH 2015 HD is supported officially.

See also forum post: 128231: [IMPORTANT] CLONING - How NOT to do this!!! which was written after encountering many other users who have done as you have done.

Having got all the above in the open, the first advice that I would offer is to remove the new M.2 SSD and reinstall your original WD 1TB HDD drive, check that your BIOS is showing that WD drive correctly, and if you have a UEFI BIOS system, that you have chosen Windows Boot Manager as the boot priority device (not the physical drive), then check if the WD drive will allow you to boot correctly into Windows 10.

If the original WD drive boots OK, then make a full disk & partitions backup to an external backup drive before trying any further actions - this is your protection against needing to do a full Windows install along with all your programs and data (assuming you have some backups of the latter).