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Can't boot on either image restore or drive clone

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I'm an old-time Acronis user, purchased Acronis 2010 back then.

Anyway, bought a new Micron 256 SSD, it came with Acronis True Image 2014. Made a bootable disk, made an image of the old drive, swapped the new one in, restored. This drive has a small hidden partition, but there was no way to set the "real" partition active, so it wouldn't boot. Why isn't there a way to specify changing with partition is active?

Then I decided to clone the drive, so I hooked the old SSD back up. Did a full manual clone, and this time *did* make the "real" partition active, and it *still* won't boot. Now I'm back on the old drive.

What's going on here? Makes me wonder if I can really rely on my Acronis images in the event of a serious failure.

Thanks.

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Just tried it again. Cleared the new disk. Carefully restored from the image file, doing first the MBR and disk signature, then the small hidden boot partition, then the main partition.

Still won't boot, gives me "please insert proper boot device" etc.

Any help appreciated. Thanks.

- Verify that your BIOS settings recognize the SSD
- Verify that your BIOS Boot settings are set so that the computer will boot on the SSD
- Do not boot with your OLD disk and the SSD in the system
- Before you restore, choose add new disk from the Acrobis recovery CD and point at your SSD, initialize it as an MBR disk, not GPT
- When you restore, make sure that the hidden partition (typically system reserved) is marked active
- There should be a 1MB offset before the first partition, and the system reserved partition should have a size that is a whole number of MegaBytes

I am assuming your system is using legacy BIOS, and MBR based system disk.

After booting from the original drive, launch Windows Disk Management, take a screenshot of it showing all volumes, and post it here.

Thanks for the response, Pat:

- Verify that your BIOS settings recognize the SSD

They do.

- Verify that your BIOS Boot settings are set so that the computer will boot on the SSD

They were, when it was the boot drive. I had to revert to the old one.

- Do not boot with your OLD disk and the SSD in the system

Did this only booting to the recovery CD to try to clone the disks.

- Before you restore, choose add new disk from the Acrobis recovery CD and point at your SSD, initialize it as an MBR disk, not GPT

Did that.

- When you restore, make sure that the hidden partition (typically system reserved) is marked active

It is.

- There should be a 1MB offset before the first partition, and the system reserved partition should have a size that is a whole number of MegaBytes

Checked that too, and manually set the reserved partition to 100 MB as it is on my current disk.

I am assuming your system is using legacy BIOS, and MBR based system disk.

Correct.

Disk list attached.

Allegato Dimensione
186584-114382.png 132.45 KB

Have you tried a manual clone using the "AS IS" option as the Move option.

Target disk should be in normal computer BOOT position using same connector as old SSD.

Clone should be performed from TI Recovery CD.

If partition size adjustments needed from 80 to 256 on the new disk, that is easy to do later.

You can also use the user created Win Recovery CD to make things bootable if there is an issue.

Thanks for the reply, Grover.

Never saw an "as is" option". I'm now afraid to boot with both drives in the system as the last clone I did, I copied the drive signature (the first time I didn't, so I thought that was the problem) and was warned not to start the system with two drives having the same signature.

Never thought of making a Windows recovery CD, I could try that I guess.

The thing is.. I can't afford to risk having my system go kablooey and then not be able to use it for days. This whole thing has really shaken my confidence in the ability of Acronis to do what it is supposed to do. Acronis keeps prompting me to pay them to upgrade the product, and I would do it -- if it worked. It doesn't, and I'm also amazed at how difficult it was to find basic options like resizing partitions within the software, which I would have expected would be fundamental.

Windows is acting like Windows. When a clone has been performed and attached, to keep Windows from becoming confused, you need to have only ONE disk connectded on that first boot following the clone. When two are attached on that first boot following the clone, it may pick either or both and you could even lose your old boot disk.

Many of us recommend that the clone not be used but accomplish the same objective by performing a backup and then restore the backup--same result. Much safer but it takes a little more time for the extra bacikup.

The "as is" is part of the manual clone settings. It is recommended when user is having trouble making a successful clone.

There is a good chance the reason for clone failure may have been simply that the correct disk was not selected at bootup in the bios.
Also, often times, the target needs to be connected to the exact same motherbord SATA Port that was used by the origninal boot disk.

I would suggest that you do a new backup of the old 80GB sd and perform the backup as per the example 2-A below. The backup can be done via the CD or within Windows. The backup can be stored on one of your larger storage drives.

Then remvoe the 80 and attach the 256 in its place using the same connector. Normally, the boot disk occupies the lowest SATA port number--usually port 0. The 80 will not be attached. AFter being backed up, put it in a safe place.

Do a disk option restore and retore the backup. Click on signature link 3 below. Inside that link, use the example #1 for restoring (Restore to large or smaller disk). Be sure and check the "Recover disk signatujre".

Once the restore is successful, reboot and open the bios and make sure the bios is selecting the correct boot disk.
You shouldn't need to but you may have to use your user created Windows Recovery CD to make your system bootable.

Thanks for the reply, Grover. My initial foray was with making a backup image and then restoring. I only tried the clone when that didn't work.

I *have* at a couple of times in this process noticed my BIOS playing games with which disk it wanted to boot from. Even though I did as you suggested and put the new drive on the original connector. But I was pretty sure I did have the correct boot disk selected after my prior backup/restore.

I'll try it again as you suggest. But I'm a bit nervous of the possibility of my system being left in an unusable state, which I can't afford to have happen right now because of a big project I am working on. So I may have to wait a while to try again.

After I do the backup and then restore to the new drive, should I disconnect my other 2 drives completely? Or just check the BIOS on the first reboot?

Disconnect both old drives if a Windows Installation is on both. Double check you BIOS boot setting.

I have my old boot SSD, and two data drives. Only the SSD has Windows installed on it.

The two large data disks can remain connected but do check the bios for correct disk selection if the new disk will not boot after it is restored.

Before you do your next new restore to the new SSD, you may want to use the TrueImage CD tools menu, and use the "add new disk" option and delete all the partitons on the new SSD as they will be overwritten anywaiy. The new SSD can be initialized there as a MBR disk. New SSD does not need partitions or formation. Unformatted is the preference. This is covered in the guides.

One of the data disks is GPT, but that shouldn't matter should it? It's a 3TB drive. Thanks.

Try booting with only the SSD connected. In the screen capture you posted, the GPT data disk has an ESP(EFI System Partition). This partition contains boot files and shouldn't exist on a DATA drive. I bet your computer is trying to boot from it.

So I let this go for a few weeks due to being busy with work and not having time to risk having my PC go kaflooey.

Last night I backed up my C drive again. Swapped in the new one on the same port (as I had done the first time). Restored the backup.

Everything worked perfectly the first time. Just as I thought it would when I initially tried this.

???

Computers are weird. :)

Thanks for the earlier assistance.

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Hi folks...
Somehow, I missed the Windows version all this restore took place from...
Was this a recovery of a Win7 or Win8.1 system ? If it was a Win7 recovery, would it have been different (under the same hardware circumstances) for a Win8.1 recovery ?
Lots of great assistance pros on this forum. We sure appreciate that !
Steve

Windows 7. And I swear I did nothing different than the first time. Starting to wonder if maybe the BIOS swapping around the boot disks after the replacement really was the problem the first time and I just never noticed.

Thanks again to all those who helped.