Cloned SSD drive not showing on computer

[rockonbazza]

Hi,

I have installed  Crucial MX500 SSD. I have a HDD (C DRIVE), DVD DRIVE (D), and when I installed the SSD I labelled it E. I have used Acronis to clone the whole of C drive to the new SSD E drive. I will then use SSD for boot/windows/etc, and leave the HDD as a basic storage drive. However – message says Acronis clone was successful, but  the only drives showing are C and D, no SSD. I was going to go into bios, and set my E drive as the boot drive, however if its not showing on my PC will it show up in BIOS? I have checked disk management, it shows DISK 0, and DISK 1, and CD-ROM 0. Disk 1 is showing as C drive, healthy, (boot, page file etc ), and Disk 0 says healthy, (primary partition). Both disks show 349gb used (give or take a few megabytes difference). Have I done something wrong.

Thanks.

[blacklion1725]

Acronis recommend youput the blank drive in the main bay and the old drive in a caddy and clone in the other direction – then remove the old/original hdd. I’ve done it your way several times with success – but always putting the new (ssd) in the main (original) drive bay before reboot. I think having both (“identical”) drives in play may be the problem.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Try booting with your original HD disconnected and see what happens. Cant hurt ?

[Dave Rice]

As BL says, although I usually do it the other way around and use Ease-US Partition Manager. Do not give the SSD a drive letter, indeed wipe it of any partitions.

When the clone is complete it’s out with the old and in with the new. Once it’s all working put the old drive in the caddy and wipe it before having both drives attached to the motherboard.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I suspect that your clone is fine because it DOESN’T have a drive letter. By default Windows will only mount one internal drive that is marked as active so if you now have a second one it won’t get mounted.

[rockonbazza]

Hi, thanks for the informative and helpful replies. I have sorted it – I unplugged my HDD, booted the PC and it recognised the SSD. I then plugged HDD back in, booted up and system now recognises both drives. Just to make sure I opened windows defrag optimizer, and it lists what type of drives you have and their label etc, so all seems fine now with my C: SSD drive. Many thanks.

[Ed P]

Glad you sorted it. Those are the moments (especially with Linux) when I worry if I have made the clone in the ‘wrong’ direction!

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

I suspect that Windows may have helpfully removed the active tag from your old HD if you look in disk management but as long as it works who cares ?

[Bob Williams]

All the above is going to be useful to me after Commerceismas. I will follow these tips to clone and install my Sandisk 480GB SSD.

A big TY guys!

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[blacklion1725]

Bob I’ve got an Acronis licence but haven’t used it since Windows 10. Dave mentioned Easeus Partition Manager – I use Easeus ToDo Backup – suspect the cloning functionality is the same across the two products.

https://www.easeus.com/backup-software/tb-free.html

Never let me down – if I remember right it asks for an email before you download but you can either ignore or type in any old tat. Very good product.

[Dave Rice]

They are different, but I’ve used the ToDo method where other partition based ones failed.

As a PC backup product, it’s the one I use on this laptop.

[blacklion1725]

Thanks for clarifying Dave – I’ll have a look at the “Partition” tool. ToDo is my “clone” tool and the (still daftly named) “Windows 7 Backup and Restore” is my backup imaging tool these days. The paid third party tools don’t seem to add much except cost now.

[Richard]

I am sure I used an image “Windows 7 Backup and Restore” at least once. Connecting the SSD in place of the original C drive, starting the PC with either a USB or DVD/CD recovery option (I cannot remember which) and telling the start up to restore the image to the new drive. I do not remember it taking that long to do the task. It booted just fine first time – remember to pull the start device option first!

[blacklion1725]

Hello Richard – if I remember right you can restore a W7 Backup and Restore image to a new HDD as long as it the same capacity or bigger (you need a recovery or install USB drive).

It is a bit less elegant as you have to go in two stages (create an image somewhere, then restore that image to the new HDD/SSD. It is a useful tool especially as you can mount the backup (VHD File) in diskmgmt.msc and explore/copy content etc.

It “works” but is better as a backup for an existing system than a disk transfer tool (for me anyway)

[Richard]

BL, I was trying to remember why I used the image and restore method and then I remembered, my daughter’s PC developed a memory problem and the constant restarts blew the SSD, so an image was the only quick way to restore her machine. I tend to agree that it is probably not the number one choice for cloning, but when stuck between a rock and a hard place it is a life saver.

I have also used a Live CD/DVD to copy and create a bootable drive from a failing HD. It was hard work, there were bad sectors that did not always read properly and I tried several live disks before I got one to achieve a successful result. The user had some software on their original drive for which the install disks were not longer available. Again it was not eligant and was hard work compared with the cloning route.

I agree with those who said remove the old disk, substitute the new bare drive, put the old drive in  a caddy and boot from the transfer software, CD/DVD or USB drive and just let it go. Shut down, remove the start up device and the external drive and let the machine reboot when you are ready, job done. However, it only works for a planned change out!

[Bob Williams]

Will that work with a 1TB drive spinner (old/current system) transferring to a 480GB SSD? I may then look for a smaller case, as all I will have in there would be the SSD: the DVDRW is going, I cannot recall when I last used it and I have a portable USB Sony DVDRW for emergencies anyway. Checking ‘C’ drive Properties, I am only using 128 GB of the 1TB. Wasted space in a mechanical device subject to wear? No thank you, going SSD. Spinner is a WDC, probably about 3 years old now. I have the NAS and an external USB caddy, both with 2TB spinners, both new.

If I can find a suitable smaller case, I will give up on buying a laptop. I love the HP HD monitor in here and would want to use it with the smaller case. My No.2 grandson is hoovering up any cases, parts, etc and will take this case. I think he and his mate are putting together systems for sale. Told him that’s a blind alley, but let him learn the hard way!

Any advice, thanks guys.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Richard]

From what I remember it used to be recommended that the disk should have the active boot partition reduced in size down to something of the same order as the SSD before you try to clone the drive. You can change it again after the drive is cloned. Disk management should allow you to do it quite simply, but carefully!. I believe that a few cloning systems can adjust the sizes on-the-fly, though I believe that an increase is easier to achieve than a size reduction so that is a risk you may or may not want to investigate.Making an image and perhaps a back up of the drive before doing any work is always a wise move.

[Dave Rice]

If you only have a C: drive to worry about EaseUS ToDo’s system backup works very well, but it’s a 2 stage process.

1. Make a System Backup of the old drive to an external or network drive.
2. Make an EaseUs Emergency DVD / USB (the Linux one never works, chose the Windows PE one).
3. Remove old drive, put new one in and boot from the Emergency USB.
4. Restore the System Backup to the new drive.

It means you don’t bring over any OEM recovery partitions, which I find are mostly useless these days. It also means that the new drive can be a smaller capacity, all it needs is sufficient room to hold the “live” system.

If you have multiple data partitions you can now create them on the new disk and just do a file copy from the old drive.

If you have a paid for Home edition the System Transfer option basically does the above but with a bit more hand holding.

It can be quicker than cloning due to the fact it’s 100% successful whereas cloning can be a PITA. Also you have created a full system backup for the future, which was going to be your first job on the new drive wasn’t it? ?

 

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

For anyone wanting to restore a Windows backup and recovery image, a Windows Recovery Enviroment (RE) boot USB is a good idea. Here’s a way to make one.

https://www.idrive.com/disk-image-winre-bootable-media

And here is what Windows RE can do for you.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-recovery-environment–windows-re–technical-reference

 

[blacklion1725]

I think (happy to be set straight) that if you don’t make a recovery drive then it is not the potential catastrophe it could be with Windows 8. A suitable install usb drive will allow you to restore an image backup (you still need to have made the image backup of course).

[Author]

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