Problems Cloning PATA HDD to PATA SSD via USB-PATA Interface [Seems Not a True Image Issue]
Last night I cloned a USB-PATA mounted FAT32 HDD (Maxtor 20 GB 6L020J1) to a USB-PATA mounted (uninitialized) SSD (Transcend 32 GB TS32GPSD330) on a Win7 x64 host. Acronis says that the clone succeeded. But the Win7 file system can't see the SSD and SSD can't be booted from within another host. An examination of the SSD from within True Image shows it had been initialized and written to. I consulted Acronis web help here -
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATIH2014/index.html#…
Page says: "Warning! If you clone a disk with Windows to an external USB hard drive, you will not be able to boot from it. Windows does not support booting from external USB hard drives. Please clone to internal SSD or HDD instead."
I am not trying to boot from a USB drive. I am trying to copy a disk image from a USB-PATA mounted HDD to a USB-PATA mounted SSD drive in order to boot the SSD from a different host internally. This is why I purchased True Image. I just want to create a duplicate disk image on an SSD from a source HDD using temporarily mounted USB-PATA interfaces. Will True Image not do this fundamental task? Is there another disk imaging/cloning application out there that will? Thank you.
I would say that clone copy probably succeeded. I also understand the SSD was initialized. Believe your problem is that the SSD has not been marked as Active thus will not boot.
Hi Bob,
Thank you very much for your reply. I'm a novice at this disk cloning thing so please bear with me. I'm not clear by what you mean "marked as Active." When the disk is still attached to the Win7 temporary host via USB-PATA should I do something to mark it as Active? I can see the drive from Acronis and in the Device Manager but it is not visible in Windows Explorer. Is there some action I take from Acronis True Image to mark it as Active?
Also, when I put the SSD in its intended host the BIOS cannot see it, so I'm not sure what it means in that environment to mark it as Active.
Any pointers you could provide about this Active marking step? Many thanks again.
From the disk management screen in Windows, locate the disk, choose the disk by left mouse click. Now right click mouse and in resulting menu look for Make Active. If you do not see the choice there, then on the menu bar you should see a tab named Action, click that tab and look there.
[quote=bitSync]
I would say that clone copy probably succeeded. I also understand the SSD was initialized. Believe your problem is that the SSD has not been marked as Active thus will not boot.
I just installed and opened Macrium Reflect Free on my Win7 host with both my source HDD and my destination SSD mounted via USB-PATA external interfaces. Still, the Win7 host file system sees the HDD but not the SSD. Macrium Reflect shows both drives as "Active", both drives MBR FAT32 (LBA). SSD file system was analyzed by Macrium with no errors found. Macrium's SSD file system analysis looks just like the HDD file system analysis. Still, the Win7 host cannot see the SSD. I don't understand that.
From the disk management screen in Windows, locate the disk, choose the disk by left mouse click. Now right click mouse and in resulting menu look for Make Active. If you do not see the choice there, then on the menu bar you should see a tab named Action, click that tab and look there.
Bob,
Went into Disk Management. The SSD is shown as -
Layout = Simple
Type = Basic
File System = FAT32
Status = Healthy (Active, Primary Partition)
Capacity = 29.80 GB
However, drive is still not visible in Windows Explorer and is still not detected as the primary boot drive in the other machine. Thanks again for your assistance.
Any idea how to assign a drive letter to this SSD?
Progress! Just discovered how to add a drive letter to the SSD (Disk Management | Change Drive Letter and Paths...). Named it G: and it's now visible in the file system and navigable in the Windows Explorer.
Well yes giving a drive a letter makes all the difference. Should boot now too.
It is puzzling to me that when I attached the source drive to the Win7 machine I had no need to assign a drive letter since it was assigned automatically by the OS but when I attached the apparently fully cloned destination SSD drive the assignment of the drive letter was not done automatically by the OS. I didn't see anything in the Acronis True Image documentation about manually assigning a drive letter; perhaps I missed it? I see that subsequent detachments and reattachments of the destination SSD from and to the Win7 host no longer require manual drive letter assignment.
I have yet to try booting from the drive in the target host. I'll try that again in a little while. Thanks.
No luck booting from the SSD. I may have to fiddle with the BIOS...
You must make this SSD first in boot order in the bios. Most SSD's require that they be attached to the first drive port on the host machine(port 0). You assigned the letter G: to the drive, you will have to change that to C: before it will successfully boot. This is because the image you cloned was of a C: drive OS, Doing that will require the use of a Win 7 install disk, and running a command prompt. You will need to use Windows built in DISKPART tool to assign a new drive letter. This is a very powerful tool and can render the device unbootable if used incorrectly. For a description of the DISKPART tool look at the link below:
Thank you, Bob. Not knowing anything about this I did have a fleeting thought that the SSD might need to be named "C:", shortly after my new knowledge that I had to manually assign a drive letter to it. I guess I was thinking that the drive letter was the OS's name for the drive rather than the drive's name for itself. This was based on my understanding that when drives are added to the system the OS ordinarily assigns the drive name; this appears to work differently for the boot drive where it is self-named "C:"? Also thinking that any IDE drive attached to IDE Primary cable and pinned to be Master would be regarded as "C:" by the OS. Little did I know...
You are really giving me an education here. Very grateful.
The destination host for this SSD is a non-standard computer, a microcontroller based on the 300 MHz Celeron. The system that runs on this host is custom software wrapped around a version of Microsoft Windows 2000 kernel. The microcontroller has no CD-ROM, just the floppy and the HDD (which I am trying to replace with the SSD).
I think you may have figured out my problem. If the SSD needs to be self-named "C:" for the intended host to boot from it, I'll need to sort through your recommendations above to find a way to do that. Best regards.
Since your copy of the OS on the SSD uses the drive letter C:\ for all file reference the OS is therefore going to look to drive C:\ for such data. Without that location available it will fail. Good luck in your endeavor.
Well, diskpart looks pretty straightforward: list volume, select volume, assign letter. But can I re-letter the newly lettered SSD "G:" to "C:" from a host that already has a "C:" boot drive without causing conflicts? Will the OS allow 2 drives lettered "C:" (I'm thinking not)? Can I temporarily change the "C:" boot drive letter to something arbitrary, name the SSD "C:", unmount the SSD, then rename the host boot drive back to "C:"?
I can't afford to screw up this host.
So, thankfully, Win7 prohibits naming duplicate drives "C:"...
The BIOS on the intended host can't even see the SSD. Does this really have anything to do with what the drive is lettered as?
You could probably temporarily change your C:\ drive to an arbitrary letter, then change the SSD to C:\, then change back but I would not do so, guess I am maybe to paranoid about such things.
Windows prohibits the use of duplicate drive letters period.
Diskpart will change the previous letter assignment to what is commanded.
You can try to see if the drive will boot as is. If it will not work then I believe you will need to make this drive letter change.
So, if I understand you correctly, if the newly cloned SSD is installed in the intended host on the IDE Primary Master cable interface and is jumpered as Master, the BIOS won't see the drive because it is not self-labeled as "C:"? Just trying to understand the thinking here. You may be right but I'm still unsure that the disk drive internally bears the name "C:" and carries that name with it from machine to machine. You're saying that drive letter is a persistent, configurable attribute of the drive that is independent of the OS or the machine it is on?
If I am stuck with the situation of having to assign a persistent (from machine to machine) drive letter "C:" to the SSD, that will be challenging because every other machine I would make that assignment from already has a drive "C:" and the OS won't permit duplicate drive letters. It sounds like the only way to do this is to find or configure a machine with no bootable C: drive, boot an OS from CD-ROM/DVD-ROM that has diskpart on it, mount the SSD, letter the drive "C:" using diskpart, remove the SSD from that machine and then attempt a boot from the SSD in the intended host machine?
Is it just me or does this seem like a ridiculous amount of craziness just to clone a FAT32 boot drive?
Question 1. No I am not saying that, your bios will recognize the drive. The C:\ is necessary for Windows simply so that it knows where data is located. Look at this way, you install Windows to a machine in normal fashion with an install disk using default install procedures. That install by default is performed to the disk and assigned drive letter C:\. Now all file locations within Windows point to data on a drive known to the OS as C:\. What happens if you change that designator to another letter?
Your duplicate disk image is fine on the SSD. In your original post you stated that you cloned the image from an HDD to this SSD. If that succeeded then you should be able to clone from that to another disk following the Acronis recommended proceedure with success.
You also say that this clone will not boot. It would not boot for a reason. There are a number of reasons this may be true. We discovered there was not a drive letter assigned to the drive so you assigned the letter G:\ So now you have a drive which Windows sees as drive G:\ with an install on it that is going to look for data on drive C:\? Don't see how that is suppose to work.
If you take this SSD attach it to another host that has no other drive attached will it boot or not?
If not then there is another problem like, Mater Boot Record is corrupted or something along those lines that is preventing the disk from booting.
My previous instructions where made to assist you getting the disk to boot. The drive letter thing in a typical clone operation is not a big deal and should not be here either.
So can you boot a machine with only the SSD attached or not? That is the question.
Question 1. No I am not saying that, your bios will recognize the drive. The C:\ is necessary for Windows simply so that it knows where data is located. Look at this way, you install Windows to a machine in normal fashion with an install disk using default install procedures. That install by default is performed to the disk and assigned drive letter C:\. Now all file locations within Windows point to data on a drive known to the OS as C:\. What happens if you change that designator to another letter?
The BIOS on the intended host machine will not detect the SSD. I get the relative filepath thing and the explicit filepath thing, but I think we aren't even at the point where specifying file locations by the OS is relevant.
Your duplicate disk image is fine on the SSD. In your original post you stated that you cloned the image from an HDD to this SSD. If that succeeded then you should be able to clone from that to another disk following the Acronis recommended proceedure with success.
You also say that this clone will not boot. It would not boot for a reason. There are a number of reasons this may be true. We discovered there was not a drive letter assigned to the drive so you assigned the letter G:\ So now you have a drive which Windows sees as drive G:\ with an install on it that is going to look for data on drive C:\? Don't see how that is suppose to work.
I'm not trying to boot from the newly cloned SSD on the machine it was cloned on. I'm wanting to boot from the newly cloned SSD on the intended host machine. On the Acronis clone host, the SSD file system is completely visible and navigable and looks identical to the source HDD. But I'm not trying to boot the Win7 host from the cloned SSD.
If you take this SSD attach it to another host that has no other drive attached will it boot or not?
It not only will not boot but the BIOS doesn't even see the drive. This is the fundamental problem I am trying to solve.
If not then there is another problem like, Mater Boot Record is corrupted or something along those lines that is preventing the disk from booting.
My previous instructions where made to assist you getting the disk to boot. The drive letter thing in a typical clone operation is not a big deal and should not be here either.
Again, not only will it not boot but the BIOS cannot even see the drive. There can be no attempt to boot without the Primary Master being visible to the BIOS. The MBR will never be seeked for by the drive until the drive is identified by the BIOS.
<So can you boot a machine with only the SSD attached or not? That is the question.
No, I can't boot from another machine because the BIOS cannot see the SSD.
I know this must be frustrating for you too; you've put a lot of time and energy into this thread. And I am very grateful for your assistance. But there is seeming something about the BIOS in the intended host and its compatibility with the newly cloned SSD that prevents the SSD from being detected by the BIOS. I think we are well before OS drive letters and master boot records. There is something about the cloned SSD or the way it was cloned that seemingly makes it invisible to the BIOS.
I completely understand if you want to bail on this thread (although I hope you don't), and if you do, you have my deepest thanks for trying to help me with this frustrating issue.
Please give details of this machine that will not recognize the SSD. What interface are you using to connect the drivto this machiine?
The target machine is a microprocessor-based controller purpose built to operate a digital audio mixer, the Mackie d8b (http://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/maintenance.html). The CPU chassis for this mixer controller is essentially a PC (without the generic Windows environment), but with very limited and specific device drivers and devices and its purpose built software is wrapped around a Windows 2000 OEM kernel; in other words, when it boots you don't see Windows, you see the mixer's custom software operating environment. The controller is based on the Itox CB50-BX/ZX motherboard with a Celeron processor running at 300 MHz, 256 MB PC100 RAM, a 1.44 MB floppy drive and a Maxtor 20 GB 6L020J1 hard disk drive (the boot drive being cloned). The system boots from Award BIOS v4.51PG and Award Plug and Play BIOS Extension v1.0A. The system dates to about 2000. By all modern computing standards it is an antique, but it is exceptionally well suited to its function.
The original Maxtor HDD is a FAT32 IDE (PATA) drive configured as Primary Master and attached to the motherboard's Primary Master drive interface via IDE ribbon cable. The Maxtor HDD can be attached to a guest host (in my case I'm using a Win7 x64 machine) using a USB2-PATA external drive interface.
The original hard disk drive is roughly 14 years old and still boots by some miracle of fate. The motivation for the SSD replacement is to prolong the life of the system by preempting a hard disk crash and to quiet the system for its recording studio environment.
This may be more than you wanted to know but this is what I'm working with. Thanks!
Here's a wonderment I have. When Acronis True Image does a disk clone, does it do a byte-for-byte image of the source drive, including extended information like boot flags? In other words a complete byte-for-byte image transfer? Or does Acronis True Image do something else when it makes a clone? Like copying files and file system but maybe some things it doesn't recognize get left behind?
In other words, does True Image actually make a true image?
Well, I just tried a completely different method with a completely different application with the identical results. I used Macrium Reflect 5.2 free trial software to backup a byte-by-byte image from the Maxtor HDD to the Win7 host hard disk and then restore the byte-by-byte image from the Win7 host HDD to the SSD. Exact same results, the BIOS in the target machine can't see the SSD. Epic fail.
There must be some peculiar incompatibility between the BIOS and the SSD that I just haven't been able to overcome. I think I've run this thread its full course. I don't think Acronis True Image has anything to do with my issue. Bob, thank you very much for your assistance. You've gone above and beyond!
I found something of interest that you possibly have missed, review the attached .pdf file and pay particular attention to the note at the bottom of the page.
Thanks, Bob. As you can imagine I have scoured this d8b support site for clues and have also sought assistance from some of the d8b forum community members. Unfortunately, the motherboard and the BIOS addressed in your link are different than the one in my unit. I have what the d8b community refers to as the "newer" motherboard with Award BIOS. Thanks and best regards.
Well, I thought you might say that and quite frankly was hoping you would. Attached is the .pdf file for the "newer" motherboard. Again pay attention to the note at bottom of the page.
Thanks, Bob. As the sheet advises, I do not use the IDE HDD Auto Detection utility; the Standard CMOS Setup hard disk Type fields for Primary Master and Secondary Master are set to Auto as advised. But your note inspired me to take yet one more critical examination of the entirety of the BIOS settings and everything looks OK. Still no SSD drive detection though, I'm sorry to say.
Just for giggles I popped the original Maxtor 20 GB HDD back in and it boots just fine.
Ok, so it appears now that we can narrow it done to this, the machine bios either does not support SATA (can be determined by no option for SATA available for disk settings in bios), or the bios does not support nor recognize your PATA adapter.
Can you provide adapter specs, brand model, etc.?
I believe SATA is not in the mix here. The original HDD is IDE (PATA) as is the new SSD. I purchased the PATA SSD because the manufacturer (Transcend) described it as a no-fuss replacement technology for IDE HDDs. We know the BIOS supports IDE because the original 20 GB HDD, which the BIOS can see, is IDE. There is no adapter, per se, because the IDE drive connects directly to the motherboard IDE Primary Master ribbon cable connector, so the IDE HD/FD controller is baked into the motherboard. I'd have to look through the ancient motherboard manual to determine what sort of chipset is managing the drives. But we know it detects and operates a 20 GB PATA HDD just fine.
There is one thing that has me a little concerned, but this may not be the issue. In reading through the Mackie d8b database, readers are advised to install nothing larger than a 32 GB disk drive, which is what I purchased. In further surfing the net I found some very old Award 4.51PC BIOS forum discussions about the Award BIOS of this era having a bug in it that prevented it from seeing drives greater than 32 GB. Now I know I'm talking about greater than 32 GB, but is it possible this disk size is just barely on the wrong side of what the BIOS can detect? I'm wishing I had purchased 20 GB SSDs.
I have a tech support question into Transcend, the manufacturers of the SSD, hoping for some assistance there. Many thanks!
I think your suspicion about the drive capacity may actually be correct. SSD makers add about 10% extra space to advertised capacity to provide for overprovisioning. If the bios is able to detect physical drive space rather than use what the drive controller reports then this would be an issue.
Just on off chance did you try. to remove the.drive letter assignment you made to the drive?
I wonder what would happen if you shrank the partiton on the disk to say 25GB and left the rest as unallocated space?
One of the things I intend to ask Transcend is if they'll send me a smaller capacity version of what I purchased, something smaller than 32 GB. That may be a telling experiment.
I did not try to explicitly remove the drive letter assignment from the SSD. I did notice, however, that subsequent mountings of the SSD on the Win7 cloning host via USB2-PATA adapter produced a variety of drive letters depending on the order in which the SSD was mounted. So now that the SSD has been lettered (it was "G:" when first assigned by Win7), the Win7 OS is happy to letter the drive with whichever next drive letter is available.
That's a very good idea about the reduced partition size. Perhaps I can try that tonight. Thanks, Bob.
Wouldn't worry about the drive letter but do wonder if in fact the old HDD in fact has one? The partitioning idea comes from experimenting with SSD's and overprovisioning. The drive makers do this like I say and users can add to that by doing as I suggest. It just might work in this case as well.
Looks like Transcend doesn't offer anything smaller than their 32 GB SSD in PATA.
I mounted the newly imaged SSD on my Win7 clone host and took a look at it from both the OS filesystem properties and through the Acronis True Image 2014 application. Because the SSD was imaged from the HDD image it shows as just a single partition of 19.12 GB, but the application also detects that the SSD total capacity is 29.82 GB. This 29.82 GB drive size (along with some other info like the drive model, etc.) must be somewhere in non-volatile ROM on the SSD because if the software reading the drive was only looking at partition sizes it would see just the single partition at 19.12 GB. True Image shows another 10.70 GB as Unallocated//Unsupported. Yet the total drive size appears to be under the 32 GB limit.
About the old HDD drive letter, when it's installed in the d8b host it boots as "C:". When I hang it off of the Win7 clone host it accepts whatever drive letter the OS gives it.
I am attaching a document for conditioning a drive for the Mackie d8b. It says that in order to detect the drive you must have the drive type options set tp Auto which you have done and then run the auto disk detect tool to detect the disk which I think you have not done. See what you think.
Thanks, Bob. I'm familiar with this document. I haven't memorized the entire d8b maintenance site, but pretty close ;-). I have indeed tried the Auto Detect Utility and unfortunately the BIOS never finds the drive. The system just locks up trying to detect or figure out the SSD.
One thing I haven't tried yet is to go into the BIOS and manually define the drive's cylinders, heads, sectors, size, etc. (i.e., not Auto) and see if that works. If I can get some information like that from Transcend, maybe that'll be my project for this evening...
I might suggest a few things for you
1. Make certein that your IDE ribbon cable is good, fully connected and in proper orientation.
2. Turn on ACPI function in BIOS, is probably off by default.
3. Enable HDD SMART in bios, is off by default as well.
4. If possible to disable any power saving settings do so.
5. Adjust Boot Sequence in BIOS to boot C: first, is probably set for A: Floppy by default.
6. I do not know if this drive has jumper settings or not but if so try either setting to Master or CS (cable select).
Cable connection is of course citical. The IDE cables are prone to failure. The colored ends on them attach to the Mobo side for orientation. They should start on the pins easy, should not be forced into place but must be seated firmly. Check pin out side on Mobo and disk and make sure all pins are aligned straight. They can be straightened with care.
Enabling SMART should envoke Enhanced IDE mode which your drive supports and may well need to be recognized.
SSD's require constant stable power to operate properly thus reason for disabling power saver settings if any exist.
If the drive does have jumper settings having them set properly is a must.
I'm going to try to check out some of these things tonight.
Transcend got back to me and I now have all of the manual drive settings for the SSD (cylinders, heads, sectors, size, etc.) should I want to try to define the drive manually in BIOS vs. using Auto.
From your list -
1. Make certein that your IDE ribbon cable is good, fully connected and in proper orientation.
Each time I reinstall the original HDD the system boots normally so I'm confident the ribbon cable is in good shape and is properly oriented.
2. Turn on ACPI function in BIOS, is probably off by default.
Good idea. I'll look into it.
3. Enable HDD SMART in bios, is off by default as well.
I'll check it out.
4. If possible to disable any power saving settings do so.
Another good idea.
5. Adjust Boot Sequence in BIOS to boot C: first, is probably set for A: Floppy by default.
Easy enough.
6. I do not know if this drive has jumper settings or not but if so try either setting to Master or CS (cable select).
Yes, it can be set to Master, Slave, or Cable; I've tried all three with the identical outcome.
Sounds good, hopefully these steps will sort things out. In my experience I always found the CS jumper setting to be less effective than the Master setting with most drives. The SMART Enabled along with the ACPI Enabled functions should invoke at a minimum EIDE (Enhanced IDE) disk mode for the IDE interface.
Some SSD's can be recognized in a native sense as SCSI drives, if that option is available I would certainly give that a try as well.
Most SSD's also demand to be the first device in the boot sequence if in fact they contain the boot files so do make sure the drive is first in boot order.
Good Luck and will watch for your report back.
No luck with any of it. Unbelievable.
One thing I did try was imaging a different 20 GB HDD from the drive image I had saved on the host computer. The mixer CPU boots beautifully off the alternate 20 GB HDD.
Well at this point I would say that the SSD is simply unsupported hardware with the bios and modified OS. To bad as you would have gained some performance if you had been successful. I suppose it would be possible to have a custom bios written that may make it work but probably not worth the time and or expense.
Agreed. I am completely out of ideas and I've spent far too much time on this. I believe that this particular BIOS simply will not detect this particular SSD under any circumstances. I have seen some other success stories where folks have used smaller Compact Flash media and I may try that approach.
Bob, you have been a terrific source of technical information and creative thinking throughout this episode. Thank you very much for your assistance.
bitSync, this may be a little late? But I can confirm with pretty high certainty that your issue is related to the Award BIOS inability to address HDD's above 32GB.
Just like you I purchased this very Transcend PSD330 32GB SSD thinking the BIOS should handle it but it did not.
After I used HDAT2 to reduce the drive's size it was instantly recognized by the BIOS.
In my case I reduced it by 58300887 LBA's making it only 2167MB in size which is the same as the drive it replaced (This is an old CNC system)
If you want there is more info on it here:
Hi Per Hansson,
I didn't understand at all how to use HDAT2, is there a easier way to reduce the drive' size?
Thanks
Christielli
HDAT2 might look taunting to use but it is one of the easier tools unless the hard drive manufacturer happens to have such a tool themselves (unusual)
start hdat2
select drive
select "SET MAX (HPA) menu"
select "Set max address"
In the "New hidden" area type in as many sectors you want to hide by pressing "Insert" on your keyboard and then "S" for save.