Clone a drive from mSATA/HDD to mSATA/SSD
I have a laptop. It is configured in such a way (according to the manufacturer) that the OS resides on a mSATA drive cache and the data resides on a 750 GB disc drive, I think it is in RAID 0 between the mSATA and hard disk. I have a 256 GB SSD that I want to take the place of the 750 GB disc drive. I'd like to know how, if it is possible, to take everything on the hard disk and place it on the SSD, then simply plug the SSD into the controller at the same position the hard disk was and have a relatively seamless transition.
I attempted to clone the hard disk to the SSD, but I think I must be missing something. The system won't boot with the SSD in place of the hard disk.
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It is an Alienware 18 (2013 version or btx). I've tried cloning following the instructions from Acronis as closely as possible but am still unsuccessful. I cannot attach the source drive via USB as the instructions I received dictate, as I have no equipment to house and connect the drive. I was hoping that the two available internal drive bays would be enough to accomplish this cloning. TI does report a successful clone so I'm wondering if I'm just missing some step in the cloning process or boot configuration. I should mention that the SSD I am trying to clone to was originally half of a RAID 0 configuration in another laptop. In the Windows environment, it will not initialize and it still reports as nearly double its actual size. When I use the TI bootable media, the drive reports as its actual size. I still wonder if there's some switch on the drive I'm not flipping in addition to some sort of boot configuration on the system itself. I don't care about any data on the SSD. It is a Samsung SSD and I was hoping the Samsung Magician software would let me reset the drive to factory state but it seems this software will not recognize drives that think they are part of a RAID configuration.
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Paul,
I had a look at your machine on the manufacturer site. Your machines drives were not setup in a RAID configuration. It rather uses a custom drive configuration wherein an mSATA SSD drive of 80GB capacity is used as a cache for the 750GB HDD. To make it simple this arrangement works like the Hybrid drives now on the market but at a much grander scale!
It appears to me that to accomplish what you intend you will not be able to do so using the clone command. You might stand a chance of getting it to work by performing a full disk backup using the disk mode feature within disk and partiton backup routine of TI. You would then need to perform the restore of that backup using the Universal Restore feature of TI. Universal Restore is necessary I believe so that the correct drivers can be restored with the backup image to make the new disk bootable.
Given your custom drive setup I would suspect that the disk subsystem in your machine uses custom inhouse drivers not native to Windows. You would need to verify this and if true you would need to have copies of those drives when doing the restore procedure so as to add them when needed during the process.
Please review the instructions on the Universal Restore feature of TI for further details.
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http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-18-m18x/734373-alienware-18-n…
Found this link that may be of some use. Evidently I was mistaken about the RAID, seems this system uses Intel Rapid Storage Technology (RST).
I believe your clone might actually have worked at this point and what your problem is a broken raid array. Reenabling the raid away make the system work. Check to see if in the bios your system has raid chosen for the storage system. If it is in IDE or AHCI mode the system will not boot.
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I did see some interesting things in that thread. I'm a little concerned that I might still have issues with the SSD drive thinking it is part of the old RAID configuration in the the previous laptop being it still appears as a drive nearly twice its actual size in disk management. Outside the Windows environment, the size seems correct and it seems to work as a target for the clone. Inside the Windows environment, I get read errors when attempting to initialize it. For now, I'll attach the screenshot in case it is useful and I'll tinker with it some tomorrow. Thanks for the responses. I'll report back.
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| 165595-111409.jpg | 292.5 KB |
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Paul,
Thanks for providing the screenshot. Looking at it, it appears that the disk 0 is the 750GB drive, disk 1 is your 256GB SSD, and disk 2 is leftover cache. I know that your machine is capable of having 2 2.5 inch drives installed so the disk 0 is attached to your first available SATA port which would be proper. Disk 1 you have attached to port 1 which under a non raid setup would be a secondary drive. Disk 2 I am going to assume is the leftover portion of your mSATA SSD that is not used as part of the cache. Intel says that the Hybrid drive SSD/HDD arrangement does not benefit having any more that 64GB of SSD cache. Intel RST limits available capacity for the cache by this 64GB limit and according to specs the remaining space on larger drives above the 64GB limit can be partitioned and used for other purposes. I am not sure how this space is being used but is obviously clear space as it is 99% free space.
I do think that RST is still active on the machine thus the reason for your erroneous numbers. I assume that you have not attempted to undo the RST settings thus far. I am attaching a link to a PC World article on how to use RST for your convenience.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/248828/how_to_setup_intel_smart_response…
If this were my machine and I had gone as far as you have what I would do is this:
1. With machine powered down remove the 750GB drive and replace it with the 256GB drive so that the 256GB drive will be on port 0.
2. Leave the 750GB drive out of the machine for now.
3. With things buttoned back up, start the machine and enter the BIOS. In the SATA settings turn off the RAID option and select a different mode. IDE I think would be preferable.
4. Save and Exit the BIOS and see if the machine will boot into Windows
If the machine will boot then your clone of the 750GB drive was successful. If the machine will not boot you should get some sort of error message like no OS found or non system boot disk, something like that. With that information you can decide what to do next.
I am curious here, do you intend to continue to use the RST on the machine or are you wishing to have some other arrangement? If you are going to use the RST on this setup I doubt you will see any improvement in performance other than any very large writes or reads you may do.
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I don't think the previous clone was truly successful. The SSD drive persistently clung to the notion that it was part of its previous RAID array. I did find in the system setup (CTRL + I at boot) where I could remove the "RAID structures" from the SSD. I did this and the drive finally became recognizable, in Windows. It let me format/assign a voulme, etc. I think now that I've resolved this issue with the SSD, I'm ready to perform the clone again. However when I attempt it using Acronis in Windows or from them bootable CD, it now has errors. In windows it reports:
Failed to prepare operations. Error code: 10 'File system error is found. Consider checking the disk using Check Disk Utility.' with extended code: 458,780 'Run list corrupted'
I ran chkdsk. It reported no errors. I'll check into the BIOS settings, but all along I've had a working system with the 750 GB HDD in its original spot on the controller. I'm a little concerned that I might disrupt that by tinkering with the BIOS settings.
As far as the Intel RST goes, I was able to unlink the mSATA/acceleration from the HDD and the system runs fine for now. I suppose once I accomplish the clone, I could consider relinking it to the SSD although I suppose it may not offer much performance improvement once I've made the move to SSD.
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Was your SSD used in a raid array prior to you cloning to it? What brand and model is the SSD? I think at this point given the errors reported that you will have to do a clean wipe of the drive to take it back to a RAW state in order to do that. Having the drive make and model will facilitate that.
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Yes, I have a pair of these, they were configured as RAID 0 in my previous laptop. It is a Samsung. As far as the model, I'm not exactly sure if it has a simpler model name, but on the drive itself is says "Model: 2.5" 256GB MLC SSD". The part number is listed as: "MMDPE56G5DXP-0VBD7".
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Ok, I'll do some checking. See if I can find the right tool to do the job. Might take a couple days.
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