Cloned HDD is not bootable. (windows 10)
I thought this would be easy! - I am cloning a 2TB seagate HDD to a 4TB seagate HDD - data copies totally fine - however it does not become bootable - I have tried copying cloning the source attached to motherboard to target on USB and visa versa but still doesnt work - OS is windows 10 - any ideas?


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Hello Steve, Thanks for the reply -
To create my clone I am using Trueimage 2020 and I have ran it both from the desktop and from CD (rescue media)
My desktop uses UEFI - (acer)
I only have one MB connection for a HDD - so the target is to USB - but I have also swapped it round so that the source is on the USB -
The clone seems to complete sucessfully - The boot order is correct (boot manager, CD, Removable, LAN)
When I place the cloned disk alone to the MB - to start with I was getting the select keyboard screen and now I am getting your PC needs to be repaired screen.
I can still boot up with my source and when I plug the cloned disk into my USB I can see all data and in disk manager I see all partitions however the C: drive says primary and does not contain boot in the description.
appreciate your help.
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George,
Strange that disk management is absent boot in the description. How does that compare to your original source disk?
My PC's that boot UEFI of which there are 5 look similar to the screenshot below.
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Similar to Enchantech for my disk layout in Disk Management except the EFI system partition comes first and the WinRE / recovery partition last.
I do not think that you will see Boot for the C: Windows drive when the cloned drive is connected via USB
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Sorry that was meant to say my cloned disk does not say boot in the description (USB) my C: drive does
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George, after cloning, did you do a full shutdown, remove the original source drive and replace it by the new cloned drive, before attempting to boot into Windows?
A cloned disk will not boot from USB - this is a Microsoft restriction, and if you booted with both source and cloned drives connected, there is a risk of issues caused by a disk signature collision (the two drives have identical disk signatures).
Please see KB 56634: Acronis True Image: how to clone a disk - and ensure you followed the step by step guide given there for your cloning operation.
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Hello Steve - I did follow the step by step guide and ticked the box to shutdown when complete. Once completed I added the Clone to motherboard and then started the PC - I have done this about 5 times now first with Seagates Clone tool (which I realised is the same software) and I have also tried the clone with an SSD so I am clearly doing something incorrectly or there is something set in the bios- I am going to redo it again just to make sure I havent missed a step -
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George, just to be absolutely clear here:
When you say: Once completed I added the Clone to motherboard and then started the PC - do you mean that you removed the source drive and then connected the clone, or do you mean you added the clone as an additional drive?
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Yes I removed the source drive and then just connected the clone as a single drive to the MB.
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George, ref the KB step by step guide, did you do this from Windows or using rescue media?
If from rescue media, did you boot that media in UEFI mode to match your Windows OS?
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I used both windows and rescue media before. -
I retried last night - re-cut a media CD from 2020 using the simple method in rescue media builder. (this is winPE by the looks of it).
1) changed the drive order to CD first.
2) Put the target on the motherboard and source on USB and booted from CD and ran Clone software. It complained it couldnt lock the source drive.
3) So I put target on USB and source on motherboard - re ran the clone software and got the same complaint.
4) I then swapped the drives around again so that the source was on the motherboard and then booted into windows using the source drive and ran the clone software from there - seemed to work fine - it rebooted and went through the progress bar and when complete shut itself down.
5) I replaced the source drive with the target drive on the motherboard. Did not attach the source drive to the USB and rebooted.
6) ..and I get the your PC needs to be repaired screen.
Can I do a repair from the rescue media? - This is getting a tad frustrating! - Than you for your assistance.
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It complained it couldnt lock the source drive.
George, the above issue is normally caused because the source drive is in a hybrid sleep state instead of being fully shutdown.
You may want to try the exercise one more time using the Rescue Media but before trying to boot, do a full shutdown by pressing / holding the Shift key then clicking on Shutdown.
Install the new drive in the computer, connect the original via USB then boot from the rescue media to perform the clone. You should not see the issue with the drive being locked.
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George, it may be helpful to also take a look at what the boot information is listed as. After recovery, make sure only the restored clone is installed.
However, boot back into the rescue media (WinRE is recommended if you need to repair the bootloader, but WinPE will work on this part to look at the info).
Close Acronis and use the command prompt in the background. Let's get the output of diskpart first and then of bcdedit. This could be made a lot simpler to report back if you build the custom MVP rescue media so you have file explorer and some additional tools like notepad++ to paste into so you can easily save the output somewhere that you can get to after you get out of the rescue environment (save to USB or something).
I'd be curious to see what your information looks like after the recovery.
From there, we can look into possible repair using bootrec (which is only available in WinRE or a Windows installer system repair command prompt) if need be. I typically follow the guidance listed here if we need to get to that part:
https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-rebuild-the-bcd-in-windows-2624508
As for whey the clone is just not booting... can't really say. I agree with Steve that it could be a locked disk. This is usually caused by a hibernation or fastboot setting using a hibernation file when the system shuts down. On my own systems, I completely disable hibernation because of this possibility. However, you can also force a full shutdown by doing a shutdown /f /p from command prompt or doing a reboot with shutdown /r /t 1 and making sure to boot immediately into rescue media instead of back into the OS.
I have had one instance where every recovery and/or clone I tried was a similar result as yours. It was a locked disk. To unlock it, I had to let it fail 3 times, reboot each time, and let it fail. On the fourth boot, I was then given the option to try a safeboot with F8. Safeboot "unlocked" the disk and booted into Windows finally! Then, after that, I could boot Windows normally without issue.
Another person had a similar issue recently and they ended up just needing to do a cold reboot after this too. They basically just unplugged all power (AC adapter and battery). Pressed power button a few times to dissipate power leftover. Plugged in AC power and held power button 10 seconds before releasing. The bios then seemed to figure out the bootloader and booted Windows correctly. Different Bios behave differently so it can be tricky figuring out the exact issue on some systems, but I think we can get you working.
Last, did you ever try to take a backup and restore that instead of cloning to see if it works better, or not? Although cloning is nice when it works, it does have more limitations than backup and restore. And if you have a backup already (hopefully you do!) then why not try it?
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Another thing we need to start checking / asking about, is bitlocker. If bitlocker is enabled, or if it is active but disabled, this is going to screw things up in some scenarios.
Many new systems (and some older systems), come from the factory with bitlocker fully enabled. For example see Dell's article on this:
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Automatic Device Encryption
Automatic device encryption allows Windows to encrypt the system drive automatically after you completed the setup of your system. This occurs very similar to smartphones and is completely seamless for the user. Automatic device encryption however is only enabled on systems that meet above system requirements and support Connected Standby or Modern Standby specifications , which require solid-state storage (SSD or eMMC) and non-removable (soldered) RAM.
Automatic device encryption only starts after the Out-Of-Box Experience (OOBE) is completed and a Microsoft Account (MSA) is used on the system (e.g. use MSA for Windows logon, add MSA as email, app and work/school account, log into the Microsoft Store app with MSA, redeem/activate Microsoft Office or other Microsoft applications with MSA).
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Windows 10 new installations also seem to be defaulting to enabling bitlocker, but not activating it - especially on devices like the Surface Pro or where TPM is enabled in the bios already.
This could have potential consequences when trying to clone or backup offline, if the disk has bitlocker enabled, but not active - even if the contents appear to be available to the application.Basically, bitlocker is preventing the disc from being fully accessible.
Let's chedk the original source drive in Windows (elevated command prompt or elevated powershell prompt) and also the cloned rive also use the WinRE or Windows installer disk to check the bitlocker status on both - just to be sure.
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/check-bitlocker-drive-encryption-status
manage-bde -status
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Thanks Guys for your help - Cloning is clearly not working on this system for whatever reason - I thought this way should be easy but am not going to spend any more time with this and will install from scratch and copy across my data - bit of a pain as its a DAW and will take me a while to put everything back together however it will still take less time then I have just taken trying to clone! -
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