Acronis for Crucial: New external USB3.1 SSD not recognised

Peter, welcome to these public User Forums.

See KB 2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products which applies to your OEM version of ATI from Crucial.

The core issue here is that the Crucial product does not recognise your new SSD when it is not installed internally in your laptop (which is actually good news here!).

If you had been able to clone from the internal drive to the new SSD, then there is a good chance that the new SSD would not have booted correctly because this is not the recommended method being used!

Please see KB 56634: Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk - and review the step by step guide given there.

Note: the first section of the above KB document directs laptop users to KB 2931: How to clone a laptop hard drive - and has the following paragraph:

It is recommended to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Otherwise you will may not be able to boot from the new cloned drive, as Acronis True Image will apply a bootability fix to the new disk and adjust the boot settings of the target drive to boot from USB. If the new disk is inside the laptop, the boot settings will be automatically adjusted to boot from internal disk. As such, hard disk bays cannot be used for target disks. For example, if you have a target hard disk (i.e. the new disk to which you clone, and from which you intend to boot the machine) in a bay, and not physically inside the laptop, the target hard disk will be unbootable after the cloning.

See KB 63226: Acronis True Image 2020: how to create bootable media which is required to follow the above instructions.

KB 59877: Acronis True Image: how to distinguish between UEFI and Legacy BIOS boot modes of Acronis Bootable Media which is important to ensure success.

Note: Please make a full Disk backup of your working 128GB SSD to a backup drive <<BEFORE>> you attempt any further actions.  This is your safety net!

I recently upgraded my own HP Omen laptop from a 128GB Liteon NVMe M.2 SSD (supplied by HP with the laptop) to a Samsung EVO 970 Pro 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD by making a full backup of the 128GB drive, then restoring this to the new 500GB SSD after swapping the drive and booting from the rescue media (with no need for any external adapters).

Thank you, Steve, for this very detailed and thorough information!

I'm reading through it now, and will attempt this shortly.

Steve, 

I have the exact same problem as the original poster, however your suggestion that having the SSD already installed in the laptop would allow Acronis to recognize it .. NOPE.. I went ahead and tried that when I like the original poster could not get Acronis to recognize my drive. I installed the Crucial SSD into my laptop - installed the laptops original SSD into an enclosure - booted up my laptop from the original drive through the USB port.. and guess what Acronis STILL says I need to have a creative product to run it. Windows recognizes the 2T SSD just fine .. it is only Acronis that does not. So I go to this website for support which says "click here to make bootable media" click the link it tries to start acronis... which then halts with the error message that a crucial product is not detected. so Im stuck in an eternal loop from hell with every support link crashing my laptop or hitting 404 not found errors.

Scott, sorry but "booted up my laptop from the original drive through the USB port" is the issue here.  You should create the Acronis rescue media and boot using that with the new SSD installed internally and the original one as an external drive.

I tried to do that -- however I cannot start the Acronis for Crucial at all until it recognizes my new SSD as a Crucial product. So I downloaded the Acronis 2021 trial version, and it would NOT let me create bootable media to do a drive clone in the trial mode. What I ended up having to do was create a backup image of my original M2 drive to an external 5T drive -- then I swapped in the crucial drive -- rebooted the laptop with the bootable USB stick I made with the other software, then restore the old drives image to the new. Then of course I had to re-partition the drive as my original drive only had 512GB and the new crucial drive is 2T.. In the end it worked .. but they definitely need to come up with a better "OEM solution" or way to get it to work, I dunno maybe just make it a very short trial version that lets you use the cloning for 48hrs or something from the time you register it... lol . My laptop being a "slim" model even prevented me from using a spare SATA HDD to try and back up -- turns out anything larger than a 2T drive will not fit in my HDD bay lol, found out anything thicker than 8mm and my door will not close. In the end I was successful, but it took a lot of effort.. I also noticed my laptop was VERY picky about the bootable media.. sometimes it would work, sometimes I would have to re-boot multiple times before it would acknowledge the USB stick was even there. Very frustrating indeed. But I shouldn't have to tinker again now as I have the M2 2T SSD as my primary and installed a 2T SATA 2.5 HDD in the other bay. Plenty of room to work with now.

Scott is right! I can't start Acronis app because he doesn't recognize crucial SSD. So I have to create a bootable media, but I can create it only from the app that doesn't start because can't recognize Crucial SSD from USB. Is a very frustrating loop.

Carlo, welcome to these public User Forums.

See KB 2201: Support for OEM Versions of Acronis Products which applies to your OEM version of ATI from Crucial.

What type of SSD do you have and how are you connecting it to your PC?  Some external adapters / docks will cause the SSD to look as if they are a different make / manufacturer because of additional controller hardware they use.

I have no experience in using the Crucial (or any other OEM) version of ATI so cannot say whether they provide any downloadable ISO version of their bootable media or not?

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the quick response.

I am trying to copy my laptop HDD to my new Crucial BX500 SSD (located in a dock connected via usb).

They not provide any donwloadable ISO but just an application (Acronis True Image for Crucial) at this url:
https://www.acronis.com/en-gb/promotion/CrucialHD-download/

This application doesn't event start if a Crucial SSD is not recognized (and for sure I have connected it to my computer).

Do you think that if I download this firmware (https://www.crucial.com/support/ssd-support/bx500-support), my laptop will recognize it as Crucial SSD?

Thanks

Carlo, thanks for providing the links above, I have installed the ATI for Crucial in a virtual machine and while the main application won't launch because I have no Crucial disks attached, I am able to access the tools option to create bootable rescue media from the Windows programs menu.

So in the menu options, select the 'Bootable Rescue Media Builder' option after expanding the Acronis folder icon to show this and other options.

Thanks for your suggestions. Now I am able to create a Bootable Rescue Media Builder. But the bad news is that nothing changes. Acronis can't recognize my Crucial SSD via usb. In the attachments of my message there is a screenshot of the error message.

As Steve said, your screenshot indicates that that the enclosure you are using is masking the identity of the Crusial disk therefore the application does not work.  Given the fact that you are using an OEM version of Acronis True Image, Crucial is responsible for support to resolve such issues.  

Having said that my recommendation to you is to remove the the Crucial drive from the external enclosure and install it in the computer you are working on in place of the existing disk.  Then install the disk from the computer into the external enclosure and attach it via USB connection.  Next, boot the machine with the media you created and perform the clone.

I will add that we here on the Forum strongly recommend that you perform a full disk image backup to another disk prior to running the clone process so that you will have a safety net in case things do not go as planned.

+ 1 to making a full backup before attempting the clone. Some of us prefer to recover the backup to the new SSD rather than do a clone.

Ian

Hello Steve, I'm new to the forum and Googling around I found a reference to your posts. I'm currently trying to replace my 128GB SSD (OS Drive) to a 1TB SSD Crucial SSD. I tried following the recommended steps here:

move-data-from-m2-pcie-ssd-with-one-m2-socket

This method didn't work, it showed me the same as the original poster of this thread: "This product edition requires at least one Crucial SSD be installed in your system [...]". Then I read your response about this not being the proper method of doing it. So I proceeded to install the NEW SSD on my laptop and the OLD SSD on a SSD Case, then I rebooted using Bootable Rescue Media Builder and tried to follow the steps here:

knowledge base acronis content/2931

But once I get to the section where I have to select the SOURCE DISK I cannot find it. I suspect that the SSD Case I'm using to connect the OLD DRIVE to the laptop USB is screwing up the detection. I tried several times and also contacted Crucial Support but their suggestions didn't help. Am I doing something wrong on any of the steps? Any suggestions that you could kindly provide?

I did a Full Disk Backup of my OLD SSD using Windows 10 tool for it and I also created a Bootable Rescue Media Builder on a USB stick.

On one of your responses you mentioned this: "I recently upgraded my own HP Omen laptop from a 128GB Liteon NVMe M.2 SSD (supplied by HP with the laptop) to a Samsung EVO 970 Pro 500GB NVMe M.2 SSD by making a full backup of the 128GB drive, then restoring this to the new 500GB SSD after swapping the drive and booting from the rescue media (with no need for any external adapters)."

Could you explain me this method or refer me to a post that explains it? Would this help on my issue? I'm a total novice on this, I thought it would be straightforward but it wasn't.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Adolfo

Adolfo, welcome to these public User Forums.

See topic: Steve migrate NVMe SSD where I documented the process that I used when upgrading my laptop NVMe SSD drive using Backup & Restore.

I had to purchase the year subscription to be able to clone or even partition my crucialP5 nvme m.2 1TB SSD. after purchasing and booting through my usb stick, it gave me the same message that I had to pay or subscribe. So, they took my money then wasn't able to recognize that I subscribed with payment. I've spent over a day trying to figure this out. 

Willie Chavez wrote:

I had to purchase the year subscription to be able to clone or even partition my crucialP5 nvme m.2 1TB SSD. after purchasing and booting through my usb stick, it gave me the same message that I had to pay or subscribe. So, they took my money then wasn't able to recognize that I subscribed with payment. I've spent over a day trying to figure this out. 

Hello Willie.

I can see in our records your subscription is active until 2024. If that's not identified the issue should be investigated in order to solve it. Could you please confirm to me if that was resolved?

Thanks in advance!

Hello, I can’t recall exactly how I was able to finally figure it out but it’s done. It did require having to pay for an annual plan. I don’t need it anymore, can you cancel it? 

Willie Chavez wrote:

Hello, I can’t recall exactly how I was able to finally figure it out but it’s done. It did require having to pay for an annual plan. I don’t need it anymore, can you cancel it? 

Hello Willie.

Regarding the refunding, please check if your situation fits the requisites of this KB: https://kb.acronis.com/content/21242

If yes, you should contact our support so they can help you https://kb.acronis.com/content/8153

Thanks.

NOTE: I WAS ABLE TO GET THIS WORKING, i.e cloned/copied my windows drive while still installed using Acronis True Image for Crucial, WITHOUT GOING THROUGH ALL THESE STEPS ABOVE.

1. Installed the Crucial SSD in a USB M.2 enclosure. 

1a. Connected the USB M.2 enclosure to the USB-C/USB port on laptop.

(NOTE: You will not see the SSD drive in windows until you Initialize and Format it using Disk Management. )

2. Initialized the new SSD Drive in windows Disk Management. 

3. Formatted the drive in Disk Management so that Windows will recognize the drive.

You should now see your SSD Drive as a drive letter in Windows.

4. Installed Acronis® True Image for Crucial from the Crucial website.

5. I ran the software and got an error: 

"This product edition requires at least one Crucial SSD be installed in your system. ..."

You are getting this error because your "Acronis True Image for Crucial" needs an update to work, there is a bug in the software.

6. I contacted Crucial web based customer support and they supplied me with an update file "AcronisTrueImageMicron_workaround.exe".

7. I ran the update file, and the Acronis True Image for Crucial worked as described in the article below:

In the Crucial website article "How to Transfer Your Data from a M.2 PCIe SSD to a M.2 PCIe SSD If Your System Only Has One M.2 Socket"

I am using Windows 10 Home

I am following this article from Crucial:

In the Crucial website article "How to Transfer Your Data from a M.2 PCIe SSD to a M.2 PCIe SSD If Your System Only Has One M.2 Socket"

NOTE: The directions from this web site did not work because the Acronis True Image for Crucial needs an update to work.

Robert Holliday wrote:

NOTE: I WAS ABLE TO GET THIS WORKING, i.e cloned/copied my windows drive while still installed using Acronis True Image for Crucial, WITHOUT GOING THROUGH ALL THESE STEPS ABOVE.

1. Installed the Crucial SSD in a USB M.2 enclosure. 

1a. Connected the USB M.2 enclosure to the USB-C/USB port on laptop.

(NOTE: You will not see the SSD drive in windows until you Initialize and Format it using Disk Management. )

2. Initialized the new SSD Drive in windows Disk Management. 

3. Formatted the drive in Disk Management so that Windows will recognize the drive.

4. 

Hello Robert!

Thanks for sharing the solution.

The original request was from 2021, we are now in 2024, and apparently neither Acronis nor Crucial did anything make it something other then a horrifyingly poor experience for their (actual and prospective) customers.

Situation as common as it can get:
 - old laptop (Lenovo T470S) with Crucial P1 1TB and Windows 10 Pro
 - new laptop (Lenovo T590) with a 250 GB M2 and Windows 10 Pro
 - new Crucial P3 1TB to clone old laptop disk to start using in new laptop

Connected new disk in external Lenovo M2.NVME enclosure and used first USB-C connector, later USB A 3.1

Acronis for Crucial does report it finds less than two drives, no further explanation. At this moment I should have given up and look for a free disk cloning tool other than AfC... but I googled and after some links that did not help I came out here.

Reading through I understand that you need at least one or any combination of the following:
- a medium (preferably USB stick) to create a Bootable Rescue Media
- another 1TB disk to host a full recovery backup of the old ssd (to avoid Murphy's Law)
- phoning up Crucial support to request a patch program (Robert's "workaround" celebrated as solution)
 

This "solution" is obviously only for Crucial customers who happen to stumbler over this thread, read it to the end, and get someone from Crucial on the line (here it is now near 10 pm on a Saturday night) - so I will try it on my own somehow (without spending any penny for upgrades, USB sticks, or additional upgrade media)

It is not comprehensible to read through several KB articles before realizing that the target disk needs to be installed in the target laptop before booting it from an external drive... and then it is still not working as described.

I write this in the Acronis forum because I think it is in your interest to sort this out with Crucial once and for all because to me it is clear that people will continue to buy Crucial storage but will blame the following issues on the "unusable" Acronis software - not completely undeservedly so!

Peer Kuchenmeister wrote:

The original request was from 2021, we are now in 2024, and apparently neither Acronis nor Crucial did anything make it something other then a horrifyingly poor experience for their (actual and prospective) customers.

Situation as common as it can get:
 - old laptop (Lenovo T470S) with Crucial P1 1TB and Windows 10 Pro
 - new laptop (Lenovo T590) with a 250 GB M2 and Windows 10 Pro
 - new Crucial P3 1TB to clone old laptop disk to start using in new laptop

Connected new disk in external Lenovo M2.NVME enclosure and used first USB-C connector, later USB A 3.1

Acronis for Crucial does report it finds less than two drives, no further explanation. At this moment I should have given up and look for a free disk cloning tool other than AfC... but I googled and after some links that did not help I came out here.

Reading through I understand that you need at least one or any combination of the following:
- a medium (preferably USB stick) to create a Bootable Rescue Media
- another 1TB disk to host a full recovery backup of the old ssd (to avoid Murphy's Law)
- phoning up Crucial support to request a patch program (Robert's "workaround" celebrated as solution)
 

This "solution" is obviously only for Crucial customers who happen to stumbler over this thread, read it to the end, and get someone from Crucial on the line (here it is now near 10 pm on a Saturday night) - so I will try it on my own somehow (without spending any penny for upgrades, USB sticks, or additional upgrade media)

It is not comprehensible to read through several KB articles before realizing that the target disk needs to be installed in the target laptop before booting it from an external drive... and then it is still not working as described.

I write this in the Acronis forum because I think it is in your interest to sort this out with Crucial once and for all because to me it is clear that people will continue to buy Crucial storage but will blame the following issues on the "unusable" Acronis software - not completely undeservedly so!

Hello!

Support for the Acronis OEM  software is handled through the company whose product contained the Acronis OEM software, as they are best equipped to understand the specific OEM application as well as the relationship between the Acronis software and their product. Acronis works closely with the OEM on investigating and solving issues that arise.

Please contact them following this KB: https://kb.acronis.com/content/2201

Thanks.