Clone Development HDD?

Rich,

First:

Determine Boot Mode

Next:

Clone a laptop HDD

Can I:

1. Clone my existing SSD to my new system and have it behave exactly as the old laptop on the new laptop/SSD?
2. If #1 is possible, what are the steps

Rich, welcome to these public User Forums.

1.  No.  You cannot use cloning in this way. 

2.  Yes, it is possible but there may be differences between your two Dell Latitude laptops that need to be understood, plus a question about whether both laptops have been activated for the same edition of Windows 10?  (Both Home or both Pro?).

Does you new laptop have the same type of internal drive as your old laptop?  Both SATA SSD drives (2.5")?

The further consideration here is how your installed applications are activated?  If these are activated based on the old laptop hardware signature, then they will need to be reactivated for the new laptop hardware signature unless you have licenses that allow for the applications to be moved to different hardware or else used on more than one computer.

The recommended process for doing this type of migration is as follows:

1. Make a full Disk backup of the old laptop OS drive to an external backup drive.
2. Make a full Disk backup of the new laptop OS drive...
3. Create the ATI 2020 Rescue Media on either a USB stick or DVD media.
4. Identify the BIOS mode for both laptops used to boot into Windows 10.
   Note: run the command: msinfo32 to see the BIOS mode shown in the report.
5. Perform a full shutdown of the new laptop (hold Shift key while clicking shutdown).
6. Boot the new laptop from the Acronis Rescue Media in the BIOS mode used by the OS on that system if it was UEFI.  If your old laptop was Legacy BIOS mode this will migrate it to UEFI / GPT.
7. Recover the backup from the old laptop to the new laptop drive as a Disk level recovery.
8. When the recovery is completed, check it was successful and review the Logs for the operation while still in the rescue application.  You can save a copy of the log by right-clicking on the top log entry.
9. If all is Ok, then exit the rescue application and disconnect the external drive, then let the laptop attempt to boot into Windows 10 using the recovered version of the OS.  This may take longer than normal as any new hardware is discovered.
10. If Windows 10 boots correctly, then check that it is still activated correctly.
    If Windows 10 fails to boot correctly, then you may need to create the Acronis Universal Restore media and repeat step 5, then boot from the AUR media to identify any additional device drivers that may be required by your migrated OS to work on the new laptop hardware.
11. Once you have the new laptop working, then repeat step 2.

See the following reference documents related to the above.

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media

KB 63226: Acronis True Image 2020: how to create bootable media

KB 63295: Acronis True Image 2020: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media

When doing the restore of your backup, this needs to be done as a Disk & Partition restore and at the top Disk selection level.

Please see forum topic: [How to] recover an entire disk backup - and in particular the attached PDF document which shows a step-by-step tutorial for doing this type of recovery / restore.

KB 62970: Acronis True Image 2020: Restoring to dissimilar hardware with Acronis Universal Restore

Enchantech wrote:

Rich,

First:

Determine Boot Mode

Next:

Clone a laptop HDD

 

Thanks for the two replies, greatly appreciated. I went with Enchantech's since he replied first. Another failure last night. 

This is what I did:

* Determined that both systems use UEFI per your first link - Thanks!
* On the new laptop created "Rescue Media Builder" on a spare USB thumb drive
* Old 500GB M.2 SSD in a drive enclosure via USB to the new laptop
* Changed bios settings of new laptop to boot from Rescue Media
* From the app that runs off the thumb drive I ran through the steps to select the drive in drive enclosure (old laptop) as the source and the new M.2 SSD drive INSIDE the new laptop as the destination
* Kicked off the process after confirming the new drive would be wiped out, etc
* Waited a good while as it did its thing
* Completed with no errors and gave some message about rebooting. I might not have the steps verbatim as I am going form memory but you get the idea. This was an improvement over the last time because both drives were visible in the BIOS options and in the UI for Acronis for me to select source and destination

Eventually I landed in the same spot. My new drive won't boot no matter what is done. All the data is there I can browse if from the command line after exiting the Rescue Media's UI and going to X-drive via command line.

This is just terrible software and even worse documentation. I can't believe how frustrating this is. I bought it for exactly one thing it said it did very well.

I'm going to try Steve Smith's post tonight.

Oh, on a positive note Ture Image did get me restored back to my new systems clean build much faster than the Dell reinstall.

So I'm back to having a brand new laptop with just Win10 and True Image installed. Any suggestions beyond Steve's post?

Thanks again for the help so far.

Steve, thanks for the very detailed reply. I'm going to give it a go this evening. 

Yes, it is possible but there may be differences between your two Dell Latitude laptops that need to be understood, plus a question about whether both laptops have been activated for the same edition of Windows 10?  (Both Home or both Pro?).

Old laptop = Win10 Pro 10.0.18362 Build 18362

New Laptop = Win10Pro 10.0.18363 Build 18363

Does you new laptop have the same type of internal drive as your old laptop?  Both SATA SSD drives (2.5")?

Both have M.2 SSDs Old laptop 500GM new 1TB. Both have the same sector size. Both look almost like an old stick of RAM but the pins are on the short edge only one notch on both drives. I can put either drive into the same M.2 drive enclosure. Both laptops are Dell Latitudes, both fairly new. Both use UEFI not Legacy boot. I can't imagine two being much more similar unless they were the same model.

Numbers 1 and 2 from you post are done. For number 3 am I correct that I should create to USB "Rescue Media Builder" and not "Acronis Universal Restore"? If so #3 is done.

Yes I do, verify that your Boot Order shows Windows Boot Manager as the first boot device.  If it shows anything else the M.2 drive will not boot.

Steve Smith wrote:

 

 

When doing the restore of your backup, this needs to be done as a Disk & Partition restore and at the top Disk selection level.

 

Please see forum topic: [How to] recover an entire disk backup - and in particular the attached PDF document which shows a step-by-step tutorial for doing this type of recovery / restore.

KB 62970: Acronis True Image 2020: Restoring to dissimilar hardware with Acronis Universal Restore

So I followed Steve's instructions word for word. I checked the log and no errors. When it reboots I check the BIOS and Windows Boot Manager is the first and only options beyond booting to the two NIC cards.

Same problem as always, the Dell logo comes up as always when starting form a shut down. This is where you would normally go into BIOS or let it boot normally. It cycles through that a couple of time then goes into some self diagnosis and eventually some sort of start up repair where it has me pick my keyboard type (U.S.) then Advanced options of:

Startup Repair
command Prompt
Uninstall Updates
UEFI Firmware settings
System Restore
System Image Recovery

None seem to help my situation.

System Restore says "To use System Restore, you must specify which Windows installation to restore"...…

System Image Recovery says "Internal error occurred. The following info might help STATUS_WAIT_2 (0x80070002)

I can either put my clean Dell image back on or try the part in Steve's #10 about Universal Restore media???

The time I tried Acronis Universal Restore I spent many hours download WinPE stuff and trying to add drivers only to have that fail as well.

So frustrated with this less than $100 software. I'd gladly pay $5,000 to make the last week and a half go away.

What next?

Thanks to any and all that can offer up a solution

So I tried to build the Acronis Universal Restore and when I got the end, the part about the media type to create the choices were ISO, Something for Windows server, and something for Acronis server. I chose ISO and got the following error message. Nothing was created on my USB drive. Can't seem to imbed the file into the message. Pleas see attached .JPG of error message.

Rich, sorry to read that this is continuing to be more problem than solution!

Is the M.2 SSD the only installed drive in the Dell Latitude laptop?

For the System Restore error about chosing which Windows Installation to repair, did it show any such installations to choose from?  Unless you have got a Windows System Image to use with System Restore this won't help but given the recovery, there should only be the one restored Windows OS installation present!

KB 45432: Acronis Software: Troubleshooting Universal Restore and Bootability Issues

Note: I would recommend using the MVP Custom WinPE Builder tool which will include both the normal ATI 2020 rescue application and AUR (if already installed) plus you can take the option to include the Intel RST drivers that may be needed for some NVMe M.2 drives when used with RAID SATA mode for performance.  Link in my signature.

Steve Smith wrote:

Rich, sorry to read that this is continuing to be more problem than solution!

Is the M.2 SSD the only installed drive in the Dell Latitude laptop?

For the System Restore error about chosing which Windows Installation to repair, did it show any such installations to choose from?  Unless you have got a Windows System Image to use with System Restore this won't help but given the recovery, there should only be the one restored Windows OS installation present!

Thanks for sticking with me.

Yes the M.2 SSD is the only drive in my new Latitude (1TB) the old one from which I am restoring is also the only drive in that Latitude....not that it would matter but trying to provide as much info as I can.

As for System Restore no, nothing to choose from. There is a diagnostic that runs and give no info. A few other options as noted in my previous post but none give me any access to the newly restored drive or a way to access it. If I access the BIOS I can see the new restore is first to boot and if I "view" it, it appears correct in that the path is something like \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfe.efi

I have to some how be making this more difficult than I should. Lets pretend I don't know anything...which I don't seem to at this point.

• I should not use the Clone feature correct?
• I should make a back up of my old (500GB drive) as a  .tibx file
• I should boot the new laptop with the Rescue Media Builder then use it to access the .tibx file created above
• I should use the Recovery/Disk Recovery option to find that .tibx file and follow the rest of the steps you outlined and the links your referenced.
• When the above fails what next? I can't seem to get ATI running on my old system to create Acronis Universal Restore. I get all the way through the wizard then it fails
  • I can create Rescue Media Builder with the advanced options and add all the .inf files from my windows machine as well as Dell drivers I've downloaded for the new laptop. However, when I boot up the advanced version I don't see a way to apply those drivers

What seem odd to me is that I can use the ATI Rescue Media Builder to create the bootable USB and use that to recover the .tibx file that I created of the *new* Dell 1TB drive making it like it just came from Dell. What I cannot do is successfully restore the .tibx file from the old, 500GB to the new drive and get it to boot. All the data is there on 3 partitions just like it is on the old drive, I can see it by viewing FS0, FS1, FS2 in the BIOS when trying to add additional boot options when the newly restored fails to boot.

To be clear I can restore the backup of the new drive to the new drive and get it to boot and it look like it just came from dell fresh out of the box. I can restore the backup of the old drive to the new drive but it will not boot.

Rich, at this point the approach that I would be considering are as follows:

1. Recovering the new Dell laptop back to its initial state and starting with a clean Win 10 then reinstalling other key software etc, followed by migrating user data.
   This is the option you wanted to avoid back at the start of this topic!
    
2. Try recovering only the EFI System Partition from the backup of the new laptop for 1. above, leaving the main C: OS partition as restored from the old laptop.
   See if this will allow the new laptop to get further into the normal windows boot process? 

I would leave AUR on the side at this time as is not normally needed for Win 10 recoveries.

Steve Smith wrote:

Rich, at this point the approach that I would be considering are as follows:

1. Recovering the new Dell laptop back to its initial state and starting with a clean Win 10 then reinstalling other key software etc, followed by migrating user data.
   This is the option you wanted to avoid back at the start of this topic!
    
2. Try recovering only the EFI System Partition from the backup of the new laptop for 1. above, leaving the main C: OS partition as restored from the old laptop.
   See if this will allow the new laptop to get further into the normal windows boot process? 

I would leave AUR on the side at this time as is not normally needed for Win 10 recoveries.

It will take me a month to get the various development tools and projects in a state where I can be productive. This is the only reason I bought Acronis.

Can you please confirm that if I am going to try again I want to restore the backed up .tibx files and not the clone option?

My .tibx files are one a NAS ATI seems to be finicky to see the network or FTP. When I create the Rescue Media it over wrights the USB dirve. Can I later copy the .tibx files to the same USB drive, perhaps cutting out the NAS/Network for better results. That seem unlikely since once it sees the .tibx files it takes a good long while to do its thing and says successful.  

Rich, if your USB rescue media is already created and working, then no need to make it again.

If you have a spare USB HDD to use, then you could copy the .tibx file from your NAS to that HDD.

It is also possible to create a 'survival kit' type bootable HDD drive with both the rescue media and a second NTFS partition for your backup files.

To create the latter, download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software then use this to create a 2GB FAT32 partition at the start of the USB HDD drive (by moving the existing NTFS partition to make this space), then allocate a drive letter to the new FAT32 partition.

Once you have a drive letter for the 2GB FAT32 partition, use the normal Rescue Media Builder tool and point it to that drive letter for where the media should be created. (Or use the MVP Custom PE builder tool to do the same).

You do not want to use cloning as this is a full disk operation requiring both the old M.2 SSD and the new M.2 SSD to be connected at the same time.

The last suggestion per point 2. above is to try just recovering the EFI System partition (from the working new Dell Latitude laptop backup) to the non-booting restored M.2 SSD (from the old Dell laptop).  Restoring a single partition can only be done via using the Recovery option.

Rich,

In my experience with similar situations I have found that the problem is the result of a failed Windows update contained in the backup file you are attempting to restore.

If possible to recreate the backup from you source drive you should do so but first manually run Windows update tool and run it time after time until you get to the point where the "Checking for updates" reports "You're up to date" twice in a row.

The issue stems from a combination of having Windows Fast Start in use which conflicts with the PC performing a reliable Restart of the machine.  For most Windows updates a Restart of the PC is required rather than Shutdown and Start up.  Not Restarting when an update is pending can hang the update process and if you then create a backup of the system this hang will make the restore show the behavior you describe.

In some cases it is possible to get the machine to boot into Safe Mode by allowing the boot process to fail 3 times which I think you did by your description.  Once you get there you should see after the keyboard language prompts an option for Troubleshoot - then Advanced Options - then Startup Settings - then click Restart.  If the PC then boots into Safe Mode successfully click on the Windows flag, click on the Power options button and choose Restart.  I have had success in this method forcing a hung update to finish installing which results in a bootable machine.

Once the old system is up to date x2 can I do an incremental backup or should I delete the .tibx file and make a new backup from scratch?

Thanks!

Rich, if following the advice from Enchantech, then would suggest making a new full backup and use an external USB HDD for the destination to improve restore speed over recovering the backup from your NAS.

One point that has been overlooked here is to determine the SATA mode setting in the BIOS of both laptops. Most new laptops today with M.2 NVMe drives have the SATA mode set to RAID. This is supposed to increase disk performance. The old laptop could have the SATA mode set to AHCI while the new laptop could be have it set to RAID. This would prevent the old system from booting on the new laptop. If this is the case, try setting the new laptop SATA mode to AHCI instead of RAID.

Rich,

I agree with Steve on creating a new full backup image to external disk drive.

Mustang has a good point in checking SATA mode.  Having dealt with a few users owning these Dell laptops if I recall correctly they have SATA mode set as RAID mode no matter what drive is installed but never hurts to double check.

With an PCIe based drive like the NVMe running the drive in RAID mode will allow for higher I/O which in turn equates to increased performance.

Enchantech wrote:

Rich,

I agree with Steve on creating a new full backup image to external disk drive.

Mustang has a good point in checking SATA mode.  Having dealt with a few users owning these Dell laptops if I recall correctly they have SATA mode set as RAID mode no matter what drive is installed but never hurts to double check.

With an PCIe based drive like the NVMe running the drive in RAID mode will allow for higher I/O which in turn equates to increased performance.

I'm in the process of making a new back up from scratch, directly to USB HDD, after updating windows and seeing no updates pending 3X in a row. Fingers crossed. FWIW creating the Survival Kit as well. Sounds like that will just be the rescue media and back up in one spot, correct.

One point that has been overlooked here is to determine the SATA mode setting in the BIOS of both laptops. Most new laptops today with M.2 NVMe drives have the SATA mode set to RAID. This is supposed to increase disk performance. The old laptop could have the SATA mode set to AHCI while the new laptop could be have it set to RAID. This would prevent the old system from booting on the new laptop. If this is the case, try setting the new laptop SATA mode to AHCI instead of RAID.

Thanks for the idea Mustang. Just checked and both the old and new are set to RAID. Legacy is not an option on either. Seeing as this "old" laptop is not so old I think there should be an easier way to get this done. I'm not asking the impossible, am I? Seems to me the Acronis site suggests I can do what I am trying to do. I'm surely not trying to violate Windows licensing. I've paid for Win10 twice and only want one working computer when I am done. Is this out of the ordinary?

Thanks again to all for the support, ideas and help. I truly appreciate it. I'd just like to wrap this up.  I purchased and started this process on 4/28/2020.

Thanks for checking for the RAID setting. When I think about this, Windows should only need to see (and have the proper driver for) the controller the drive is attached to in order for it to boot. Any driver for other hardware can be installed after the first boot. It could be possible the new RAID controller is not backwards compatible to work with the old RAID driver. You should check the old and new Windows systems to determine the versions of the RAID drivers used. You may need to inject the new RAID driver into the old system to get it to boot on the new computer.

Report back with the RAID driver versions used. If that looks like it may be the issue, I'll tell you how to inject the new RAID driver into the old system using a WinPE recovery disk. I don't recommend using Acronis Universal Restore for this purpose. It hasn't been updated for a long time and has proven to be unreliable.

We also should know what you see when you try to boot the old system on the new computer. Do you see a BSOD with an error message such as Inaccessible Boot Device or something else? Does Windows 10 even start to boot or does it act like the BIOS doesn't see the Windows system?

Here's another thought. It wouldn't be a bad idea to put the old drive into the new computer to see if it can boot. If it acts exactly the same as the new drive with the old system on it, then you will know that the problem is not related to Acronis software but is a driver or BIOS setting issue.

Rich,

I just looked at a Dell support article that talks about needing to provide the IRST RAID driver when switching from SATA disk to an NVMe.  From what I can find the latest Intel RST driver series offered by Dell is a series 16 driver.  The latest version of the series 16 is version 16.8.3.1003.  I am providing link to the drivers for both x64 and x86(32bit) drivers from the Intel support site below.

Mustang can give you instructions for injecting the driver in the Recovery Media.

IRST Series 16 x64 driver

This download is a .zip file and must be extracted.  It contains both x64 and x86 drivers so it is best to point the injection routine to the folder that contains the unzipped files and add all of them to the recovery media.  When they become needed Windows will grab the necessary ones to make things work.  Mustang can explain more.

Enchantech wrote:

Rich,

I just looked at a Dell support article that talks about needing to provide the IRST RAID driver when switching from SATA disk to an NVMe.  From what I can find the latest Intel RST driver series offered by Dell is a series 16 driver.  The latest version of the series 16 is version 16.8.3.1003.  I am providing link to the drivers for both x64 and x86(32bit) drivers from the Intel support site below.

Mustang can give you instructions for injecting the driver in the Recovery Media.

IRST Series 16 x64 driver

This download is a .zip file and must be extracted.  It contains both x64 and x86 drivers so it is best to point the injection routine to the folder that contains the unzipped files and add all of them to the recovery media.  When they become needed Windows will grab the necessary ones to make things work.  Mustang can explain more.

Thanks I already have those drivers. I downloaded the .zip file a few days back when I was playing with the advanced features of the Recovery Media. I've been trying to add drivers, which the wizard allows but it always fails when making the bootable USB media. If I choose the simple creation it works.

I do have a significant update. Since I was making a full, new back up of the old drive directly to USB I had a lot of time to kill. I decided to change the  new laptop from RAID to AHCI and try one last time to use the simple USB Recovery Media to restore from my LAN/NAS it only takes about an hour.

This time after a couple of reboots it displayed a different "blue" screen with recovery options. One was to ignore and continue with Win10. I did that 2 or 3 times in a row. While it kept rebooting I search for how to start Win10 to Safe Mode upon booting, not when exiting. After finding the proper menu option from this link

https://www.digitalcitizen.life/4-ways-boot-safe-mode-windows-10

I eventually stumbled upon the option "4" and after, I'm guessing, it tried safe mode a few times it actually showed me my long in screen form old laptop (on new laptop). Logged in and I see tons of my icons very big on the correct, old desktop. The screen has a yellow tint (wrong vid driver for new laptop maybe). So I go to updates and it tells me correctly on the new laptop running old drive's image that I checked earlier today. I checked again anyway and it is downloading a ton of updates.

I'm almost afraid to reboot. But here is where I am right now.

• Old laptop's software/image/apps are running on new laptop
• Win Update is downloading a bunch of update
• Attached Image named OldDellRAID2.JPG is the device manager view of storage controllers from old Dell
• Attached image named NewDellDisc.JPG is the device manager view of storage controller from New Dell

Suggestions? I'm thinking let Win Update run, reboot a couple of times as is then change BIOS back to RAID where it is now currently set to AHCI

I have no idea what actually worked the change to AHCI even though both computers were set to RAID, or perhaps the different blues screen that eventually let me get to Safe Mode.

I should note that this was the first time I had tried the backup/restore after getting Windows Update to return that I was current 3X. I did in fact have an update that had red X when I first checked. Between the windows update and the Safe Mode ability it seems most likely to me that Windows Update was the culprit. Not sure about the RAID change.

Thanks Enchantech and thanks all for the help/advice. We will see how my new restore works out.

Rich,

Appears that Windows update was at the root of the problem.  Glad you got it booted.  You are correct to let it run until all updates are finished.  Since you changed your SATA mode to AHCI I have a feeling that this allowed the Standard Windows SATA driver to find the new disk and boot.

When your PC finishes with the updates go to Device Manager and have a look for any yellow triangles next to any listed devices.  If you see these then there is an issue with the drivers for those devices and they will need to be updated.

Your screen icons will likely straighten out themselves during Windows updates if not then downloading and installing the latest drivers should fix that.

For you new disk, as I said before to achieve maximum performance with an NVMe drive you need to run the SATA mode in RAID.  Since your old PC was set for RAID I am assuming the new one also has an NVMe drive.  You should verify.  In any case before you switch the SATA mode in the BIOS setup to RAID you will need to install the Intel drivers that you have.  Looking in Device Manager I believe you will find that Windows has installed a generic Windows driver at this point.  To update select Update driver for the Intel RST controller.  Follow the instructions found on the linked page below under heading Installing driver from manufacturer.

Device Manager drive update

Once the update is finished you will be notified that a reboot is required.  You can at that time reboot into the bios and change the SATA Mode to RAID, Save and Exit the bios and the PC should now boot happily using the new Intel driver and the new disk.

Changing the SATA mode back to RAID will most likely stop Windows from booting. Follow these instructions to add the IRST drivers to Windows before changing the SATA mode back to RAID:

1. Create a folder named C:\Drivers\IRST in your Windows system. Put the x64 driver files for IRST version 16 in that folder. Make sure you use the files that are in the form of inf and sys file extensions.

2. Boot using the recovery media created with the Simple method and close the True Image window.

3. Enter the following lines at the command prompt:   

      cd "\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\A43"

      A43.exe

4. The A43 file manager will run. Check to see what drive letter is used for the Windows system. It will probably be C: if there is only one internal drive in the computer.

5. Close the A43 program and enter the following line at the command prompt:

     dism /Image:C: /Add-Driver /Driver:C:\Drivers\IRST /recurse /ForceUnsigned

6. You should see a message that drivers were added successfully.

7. Reboot and enter the BIOS and change the SATA mode to RAID.

8. Reboot and see if Windows will boot.

Quick update and another thanks to all of you!!!

I've not tried switching the RAID back. Leaving well enough along for now. I will eventually.

I needed to make a backup of the NEW system running the OLD drive's data on the NEW drive. Of course my NAS was now filling up with the various ~400GB backups. So I cleaned up a USB drive and waited forever for a full back up of the new system. Feeling pretty confident that various updates have me in good shape. For example previous laptop had Intel graphics and new one Nvidia. After running the updates from both Windows and Dell my right click context menu has Nvida display available and the yellow-ish tint has cleared up.

Last couple of days has me using my new laptop with zero problems and shopping for bigger drives for my NAS. Who would of ever thought 3TB would not be enough for music and system backups ;-)