Trouble Cloning SSD on Dell Laptop
I have a Dell Inspiron 7373 2-in-1 - 13.3" - Core i7 8550U
I'm trying to clone the stock SAMSUNG SSD PM8716 M.2 2280 256GB onto a Samsung - 970 EVO Plus.
I followed the instructions on Clone a Laptop Hard Drive. During the clone I get a format/resize error (see pic). I tried a "manual/proportional clone" with same result.
Based on a frequent suggestion on this forum, I created a Linux boot drive on a USB stick, but when I try to boot to it the Dell runs diagnostics.
After escaping out of the various diagnostics, I was able to boot to the linux drive (at least I think that was it, I'm assuming it wasn't the PM8716 sitting in a USB enclosure), but the installed EVO didn't show up.
Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Steve:
Thanks much for the detailed help.
A couple of questions:
- I've done a backup to USB device using the 'Survival Kit' method, including a couple of updates. Let's call it driveA. Should I boot to driveA and restore from it or boot to a separate recovery flash drive?
- Did you write the log to the USB driveA?
- Is this the MiniTool you are referring to: https://www.minitool.com/data-recovery-software/free-for-windows.html
Thanks again.
Mitch, if you have created a survival kit drive then please check that you understand how to boot from this and test doing so using the same BIOS boot mode as used by your Windows OS, which for most NVMe M.2 drives, should be using EFI boot mode.
Run the msinfo32 command in Windows and check the BIOS mode value shown in the right panel of the report it shows.
You shouldn't need to use a separate USB drive to boot from if the survival kit is doing its job.
The log can be saved to the backup partition on the survival kit drive.
Yes to the MiniTool Partition Wizard free software tool.
Hi Steve.
I've confirmed EFI mode and that I can boot from the drive w/the survival kit.
In the restore section of the backup I have a full backup and an incremental backup. Would I need to restore the full backup first and then the incremental? If so, I'll create a new full backup so I can get this done in one step.
Also, the current SSD has 5 partitions:
- EFI: 500MB
- NTFS (Bitlocker Encrypted): 225GB
- Recovery: 540MB
- Recovery: 11.5 GB
- Recovery: 1 GB
Do I need to be concerned about Bitlocker or the other partitions?
Will the restore automatically create a new Recovery Partition?
Thanks again.
Mitch, when doing any restore / recovery, always pick the most recent backup point that you want to use, so if this is an incremental backup point, that is fine. Acronis will walk backwards from that selected file and pick up all the prior data for the recovery.
Any backup created by ATI when performed from within Windows will not include your BitLocker encryption as this is 'unlocked' at that time, so when you do the restore, it will be unencrypted - so you will need to re-enable BitLocker again.
If your backup is of the full Disk with all the partitions, then this is what will be recovered.
Note: the first step of any Disk recovery will be to wipe the target disk in preparation for recreating the partition scheme and structure from the data held in the backup image files.
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 65539: Acronis True Image 2021: How to restore your computer with WinPE-based or WinRE-based media
One final comment, if you have other disk drives installed in this PC, then it is best to either disconnect these or else ensure you have a backup of their contents, so that any mistakes won't cause the loss of any important data!
Steve:
I was able to successfully restore to the new SSD - all the recovery screens matched the directions, but the laptop won't boot to it.
Each time I start the laptop it does something different:
- Automatic Repair.
- Cycle a restart.
- Loop the animated "I'm working" circle of dots.
- Black screen with fan running.
- Error: B1InitializeLibrary failed 0xc00000bb
At first the new SSD didn't show up in the BIOS, but after a few restarts it did. However, I can't always get it to open the BIOS, so I'm not sure what it sees.
Any more suggestions?
Mitch, the first check should be of the BIOS boot settings to ensure that this shows 'Windows Boot Manager' from the new SSD.
The next step would be to boot into the Acronis WinPE rescue media and to get to a command prompt windows so that you can use the Windows diskpart command to check that the EFI partition has been set as the active partition for booting into the OS.
To get to the command prompt in the rescue media you need to close the ATI application first, then use Ctrl+C to get the prompt to show (but do not terminate the batch file when asked).
X:\windows\system32>wpeinit X:\windows\system32>"X:\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\trueimage_starter.exe" Terminate batch job (Y/N)? n X:\windows\system32>
Once you see the prompt as above, then you can use the following commands:
X:\windows\system32>diskpart Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.610 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. DISKPART> list disk Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- --- Disk 0 Online 465 GB 0 B * DISKPART> select disk 0 Disk 0 is now the selected disk. DISKPART> list volume Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- Volume 0 C Windows NTFS Partition 200 GB Healthy Boot Volume 1 G SSD-Data NTFS Partition 210 GB Healthy Volume 2 H SPARE FAT32 Partition 37 MB Healthy Volume 3 SYSTEM FAT32 Partition 260 MB Healthy System Volume 4 Windows RE NTFS Partition 979 MB Healthy Hidden DISKPART> list partition Partition ### Type Size Offset ------------- ---------------- ------- ------- Partition 1 Reserved 128 MB 17 KB Partition 2 System 260 MB 129 MB Partition 3 Primary 200 GB 389 MB Partition 4 Primary 210 GB 201 GB Partition 5 Primary 37 MB 411 GB Partition 6 Recovery 979 MB 411 GB DISKPART> select partition 2 Partition 2 is now the selected partition. DISKPART> detail partition Partition 2 Type : c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b Hidden : Yes Required: No Attrib : 0000000000000000 Offset in Bytes: 135266304 Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info ---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------- * Volume 3 SYSTEM FAT32 Partition 260 MB Healthy System
So from the above, we are using diskpart to list the available disks, then select the correct one by number (disk 0 in my example).
We then identify the correct EFI system partition (shown only as 'SYSTEM' above) by volume and partition numbers using the List volume and List partition commands.
If your EFI system partition doesn't show 'System' in the Info column for the List volume, and Detail partition commands (select partition first!), then a further command is needed.
Select partition 2Active
The Active command will set the attribute for the partition as 'System' so that the BCD can be found and used to tell the PC how to boot into the OS.
Steve:
I'm getting pretty much the same results as you, but the SSD is not recognized in Win Boot Manager.
Mitch, please see webpage: How to repair the EFI bootloader on a GPT HDD for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 on your Dell PC - and try following the steps shown there for your Windows 10 (selecting your ESP FAT32 500MB partition (EFI) ).
Hi Steve:
I won't bore you with 6 hours of battle stories...
The short of it is that after trying all sorts of BIOS tricks, the new SSD eventually worked.
However, Windows was locked and the facial recognition, pin and password wouldn't unlock it! I put the original SSD in and same thing!
The knight in shining armor turned out to be Lazesoft Recovery Suite.
Even with the free version I was able to create a bootable flash drive with software to unlock Windows on the SSD. It worked on both SSDs - amazing.
So far so good with the new SSD.
Thanks for your help!
Mitch
Mitch, thanks for the update (sorry it has taken 6 days to notice it was posted!).
I can confirm that Lazesoft is a great tool to have in the toolkit - I got a copy in a 'Giveaway of the Day' offering some years back and have used it a number of times when dealing with various PC's brought to me for help!