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New mSATA SSD in Lenovo laptop using Acronis TI 2015

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I have a Lenovo W520 laptop with a stock HDD with Windows 7. 

I bought a Crucial mSATA SSD with the intention of transferring my HDD contents to the mSATA, and then wiping the HDD and using it for auxiliary data storage.   There's a Lenovo recovery partition on the HDD, but I've never used it.
I also purchased a "full" version of Acronis True Image 2015 for use instead of the Acronis HD software that comes with the mSATA SSD.   (Not sure if I needed to do this.)
I also purchased a Crucial 2.5" SATA SSD and a USB-SATA case for use as a bootable USB drive (not sure if I needed to do that).

I'm a bit unclear as to the exact steps in order to end up with my HDD cloned (or restored) to the mSATA as the boot drive and the HDD as a second data drive for data storage.   Can you provide a newbie with step-by-step instructions on how to most easily accomplish this?
I am adept at the physical installation of the mSATA,  but not entirely sure of the rest of the process.

I think I should clone the existing HDD using Acronis True Image 2015 to the new mSATA SSD I installed in the laptop, and then set the boot target to this disk.  Is that the easiest approach?

 

Thanks in advance,

John

 

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John, welcome to these user forums.

First question, are you sure your Lenovo W520 laptop supports mSata drives?  There is no mention of this in the detailed specs for the laptop?

Next, I would strongly recommend making a full backup of your current HDD drive to an external backup drive using your ATIH 2015 software before attempting any cloning etc.  This is your means of recovery should anything go amiss in what you are trying to do.

The process for cloning a laptop are described in KB document: 2931: Cloning Laptop Hard Disk - this includes a video tutorial of the process.

Note: Your Crucial SSD and external USB Sata caddy cannot be used to boot a Windows OS drive - this is a Windows restriction not one imposed by Acronis.  

Cloning should be performed using the Acronis bootable Rescue Media created on either CD or a USB stick (minimum size of 1GB needed, max size 32GB).  See KB document: 48338: Acronis True Image 2015: Creating Acronis Bootable Media

Further note: Assuming that the laptop does support a mSata drive, then you will need to change the BIOS or UEFI boot settings in order to select the mSata as the boot device.  You should make a note of what the settings are for the HDD before making any changes or take a snapshot with your camera.  It may also be best to temporarily remove the HDD from the laptop before attempting to boot from the mSata drive for the first time.

Thanks for the detailed reply.  I have a few followup questions before I proceed with your recommendations.

The Lenovo W520 does support the mSATA.  I physically installed it in the slot under the under the keyboard and Lenovo forums describe using an mSATA drive upgrade.

On my laptop F12 during startup gives me the Lenovo Boot Options menu, and besides my existing HDD, it also lists the Crucial mSATA SSD as a boot devices. (Tried inserting as image, but had to attach the snapshot instead)   Why can't I just clone to the mSATA and then select it to boot from? I think this is what was suggested in the video in the Acronis KB document 2391.

Re the full backup:   Thanks for the recommendation and I will do this as the first step.  Should I do the full backup of all the partitions to the USB SSD (you said external USB Sata caddy cannot be used to boot a Windows OS drive) ?  If the clone process renders my existing HDD inoperable, how I would I restore from the USB SSD?  

Re BIOS or UEFI:   My BIOS settings has an entry titled UEFI/Legacy Boot which is set to "Both" and Priority setting is "Legacy First".   Following a recommendation, I used Disk Management and verfied that Legacy BIOS is the  setting for my HDD.

Just to clear up things in my mind, is it true that there's two parts to the process, one is to create bootable media, and the second is to actually clone (or restore) the OS hard disk image?

Thanks,

John

 

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John wrote:
 Why can't I just clone to the mSATA and then select it to boot from? I think this is what was suggested in the video in the Acronis KB document 2391.

Doing this will give you potential Windows problems by having two 'identical' drives in your system where both drives also have the same disk signature.  This is why KB 2391 clearly states:

(!) The important point to remember is that you need to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB.

The point here is that you should not attempt to boot into Windows with both drives connected - get the cloned SSD working OK in Windows first, then you can connect the old drive again and format it to use a storage etc.

The F12 option on boot is only a temporary boot device selection, you will need to go into the BIOS settings to permanently select the SSD as the primary boot device.

John wrote:
 Should I do the full backup of all the partitions to the USB SSD (you said external USB Sata caddy cannot be used to boot a Windows OS drive) ?  If the clone process renders my existing HDD inoperable, how I would I restore from the USB SSD?  

You need to include all partitions that are required by Windows to boot successfully.  You can leave out the Lenovo recovery partition if you don't think you will ever need but if there are any boot options that point to that recovery partition they will obviously no long work.  Please also ensure that you are looking at the Full partition list in your Acronis source selection panel, and not at the Short partition list so that you are not missing any hidden partitions that may be present in addition to those shown in your image.  Click on the text at the bottom of the panel to switch between the two views.

John wrote:
 Re BIOS or UEFI:   My BIOS settings has an entry titled UEFI/Legacy Boot which is set to "Both" and Priority setting is "Legacy First".   Following a recommendation, I used Disk Management and verfied that Legacy BIOS is the  setting for my HDD.

Please see webpage: Check if your PC uses UEFI or BIOS to be absolutely sure of the boot mode used by your Windows OS as this needs to be the same mode used to boot the Acronis boot media too, otherwise you can end up with an unbootable clone.

John wrote:
 Just to clear up things in my mind, is it true that there's two parts to the process, one is to create bootable media, and the second is to actually clone (or restore) the OS hard disk image?

Yes, though this can be considered as four steps or parts.

1. Create the bootable rescue media on CD/DVD or USB stick.

2. Boot the computer from rescue media and verify that you can see all the drives involved.

3. Select the correct source and target drives for the clone, then go ahead and perform it.

4. Shutdown, remove any boot media, disconnect the source drive, then attempt to boot from the clone.

John wrote:
 If the clone process renders my existing HDD inoperable, how I would I restore from the USB SSD?  

Sorry didn't reply to the above question.  The answer is by using the Acronis bootable rescue media to boot the system and restore the backup image to the HDD.

The alternative method is to take the full backup of the HDD to the backup drive.  Then remove the HDD, boot from the rescue media with the backup drive connected and restore the backup image to the SSD (instead of cloning from the HDD to SSD).  This way the HDD is safely set aside from the system while the restore is happening so not at any risk from error etc.

Thanks, that really helps a lot and I think I'm ready to start.   Does it make sense to create the bootable rescue media on my USB SSD drive, and also do a full backup to the same USB SSD drive?   (This would be for the alternative method of doing a full backup of the HDD followed by restore to mSATA SSD)  If not, what's the approximate capacity needed for the bootable rescue media USB stick?

Thanks again,

John

 

You can't use a standard USB external hard drive (fixed disk type in Windows) to create Acronis bootable recovery media.  Acronis will only let you build it on a USB flash drive (removable type in Windows).  This is a safety precaution to make sure someone doesn't accidentally pick their external hard drive (with their personal data on it), since the process of building the recovery media formats the drive first and sets it to FAT32 in the process.

You only need about 1GB for the recovery media. However, a good USB 3.0 flash drive is roughly $7 for 8Gb or 16Gb.  Don't skimp too much, prices are very low from small USB 3.0 flash drives.  However, not all USB 3.0 drives are created equal - don't even bother with USB 2.0 drives these days  unless you have one lying around already and don't feel like spending $7 for an upgrade.  I like the San Disk Ultra Flair because it's pretty fast, very small (but not too small like the sandisk ultra fit) and durable.  The 16Gb version is about $7 on Amazon and the 32Gb is just over $10.  You don't have to use this one, but I would stay away from the "el cheapo" generics and flimsy plastic ones with sliders that tend to push back in when you insert them in the computer.  Most of these will fail or let you down and performance can be pretty slow.    

Thanks, I didn't realize the differences between a USB thumb drive and a USB external hard drive.   I just opened Disk Management on my laptop and I see that the thumb drive is labelled "Removable" while the USB SSD drive is labelled "Basic", just like my primary HDD.

I'll try it out and I will let you know how it went.

 

Thanks,

John

Just wanted to get back to you after all your help--I followed your instructions and I'm now booting successfully from the new mSATA SSD!   Thanks again for all your help.

John

Good deal! Always good to hear success stories :)