Pulling my hair out !! -arrgghh HDD--SDD Clone ?

[Social Media]

So, I decided to change the HDD in my laptop for a SSD.

 

Downloaded the Marcrium 7 software to clone the hard drive.

 

Cloned from Hdd to ssd, but no matter what, all I get when putting the ssd in place is "No bootable device". There is no other Hdd in the machine.

 

Tried using a windows disk nothing works to recover or fix or start it.

Watched loads of video and tried umpteen ideas of bios settings and others still nothing.

Examined the files, nothing corrupt or damaged.

Done and re-done it, spent hours, still wont boot or run from the ssd.

 

I do not want to fresh install windows , I need to keep the files/apps I have and just want to duplicate/clone whats there, dont understand what could be wrong here, any ideas please ?

[gamb00ler]

The most likely explanation is that you didn't clone the hard drive completely.  You may have only cloned the Windows volume from your original hard drive.  Windows may require additional volumes/partitions to be cloned as well.

 

Look here for some help about the required partitions.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions

 

It sounds like you have a method to have both drives connected simultaneously.  If that is true, then you should be able to boot from the original drive so that you can compare the volumes/partitions of both drives and identify what's missing from the SSD.  You will probably have to re-do the cloning process.

 

I'm no longer a regular Windows user so a little rusty.  But, hopefully that will help you get the task completed.

[Social Media]

31 minutes ago, gamb00ler said:

The most likely explanation is that you didn't clone the hard drive completely.  You may have only cloned the Windows volume from your original hard drive.  Windows may require additional volumes/partitions to be cloned as well.

 

Look here for some help about the required partitions.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions

 

It sounds like you have a method to have both drives connected simultaneously.  If that is true, then you should be able to boot from the original drive so that you can compare the volumes/partitions of both drives and identify what's missing from the SSD.  You will probably have to re-do the cloning process.

 

I'm no longer a regular Windows user so a little rusty.  But, hopefully that will help you get the task completed.

The software apparently (supposed to) copy ALL, it shows images of BOTH drives, and they are identical in partitions volume size, you name it.

[Social Media]

"from pdtokyo "

 

Not interested in a Caddy , thanks

Edited April 3, 2020 by Black Ops

[Social Media]

2 minutes ago, pdtokyo said:

I think you responded to the wrong poster ... but anyway ... this is the second time that i have tried to help you with a detailed post ... similar response from you.

 

Maybe in future someone else will be able to work through the solutions that you are being offered here by me and others, you obviously aren't. 

 

No more help from me.

 

Good luck.

Then try offering something appropriate, which purchasing hardware IS NOT ! and neither is a link to steps that the software produces as you use it.

 

It was all a waste of your time and mine. Grateful for your withdrawal.

[owl sees all]

Had a similar problem as the OP.

 

If you reinstall windows through the 'windows recovery option', you will not lose your files. However, you will have to reinstall all the apps that are non-original, as the process will chuck them out.

 

Hope this helps.

[Social Media]

1 minute ago, owl sees all said:

Had a similar problem as the OP.

 

If you reinstall windows through the 'windows recovery option', you will not lose your files. However, you will have to reinstall all the apps that are non-original, as the process will chuck them out.

 

Hope this helps.

Thats the problem, or part of it, I dont want to and cant in some instances re-install the apps I have. I need to keep everything, thanks for the response.

[4evermaat]

2 hours ago, Black Ops said:

I do not want to fresh install windows , I need to keep the files/apps I have and just want to duplicate/clone whats there, dont understand what could be wrong here, any ideas please ?

 

I suggest installing a fresh copy of windows 8.1pro/win10 pro (LTSC if possible).   Then hook up the old hard drive in the 2nd sata slot or using a sata 3 to usb 3 cable and copy the necessary files over.  Reinstall any necessary apps.

 

This will be a lot less stressful and still give you what you want.

[4evermaat]

14 minutes ago, Black Ops said:

Thats the problem, or part of it, I dont want to and cant in some instances re-install the apps I have. I need to keep everything, thanks for the response.

 

Can you list 3-5 of the apps that you cannot reinstall or find a suitable replacement for?

[Social Media]

15 minutes ago, 4evermaat said:

 

I suggest installing a fresh copy of windows 8.1pro/win10 pro (LTSC if possible).   Then hook up the old hard drive in the 2nd sata slot or using a sata 3 to usb 3 cable and copy the necessary files over.  Reinstall any necessary apps.

 

This will be a lot less stressful and still give you what you want.

I appreciate your response, but I have already stated I do not want to fresh install and I cannot replace some items, I need to clone it all across. Thanks

[OneMoreFarang]

3 hours ago, Black Ops said:

The software apparently (supposed to) copy ALL, it shows images of BOTH drives, and they are identical in partitions volume size, you name it.

Two options:

a) Something is incorrect with your BIOS i.e. that the new drive is not set as the boot drive.

b) Your drives are not 100% identical, otherwise it would boot (if the BIOS is correct).

 

Some suggestions:

1) Boot your PC and go to the (BIOS) screen where you can select a boot drive. That is often the F8 key. If you select your new drive and that boot works then look for wrong settings in your BIOS.

2) Book from a (free) Boot CD like i.e. Hiren Boot CD. After you start from the boot CD you have the option to start from you HDD or SDD, try.

3) Use a partition program to look in detail at all your partitions. Is the correct partition active? Are all the other parameters the same?

 

Background info: For many years I used Ghost to clone HDDs and SSD and it always worked. But then I tried this (now maybe two years ago) with Windows 10 and surprisingly Ghost did not clone the disk 1:1.

At that time I bought hardware to clone disks (like suggested above) and that worked perfect. Since then I always use that hardware box. Insert source "disk", insert destination disk, click start, wait maybe 10 minutes (with a SSD), done. It cost a few THB but it prevents lots of headache.

[JaiMaai]

6 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Two options:

a) Something is incorrect with your BIOS i.e. that the new drive is not set as the boot drive.

b) Your drives are not 100% identical, otherwise it would boot (if the BIOS is correct).

 

Some suggestions:

1) Boot your PC and go to the (BIOS) screen where you can select a boot drive. That is often the F8 key. If you select your new drive and that boot works then look for wrong settings in your BIOS.

2) Book from a (free) Boot CD like i.e. Hiren Boot CD. After you start from the boot CD you have the option to start from you HDD or SDD, try.

3) Use a partition program to look in detail at all your partitions. Is the correct partition active? Are all the other parameters the same?

 

Background info: For many years I used Ghost to clone HDDs and SSD and it always worked. But then I tried this (now maybe two years ago) with Windows 10 and surprisingly Ghost did not clone the disk 1:1.

At that time I bought hardware to clone disks (like suggested above) and that worked perfect. Since then I always use that hardware box. Insert source "disk", insert destination disk, click start, wait maybe 10 minutes (with a SSD), done. It cost a few THB but it prevents lots of headache.

I've never used a hardware cloning solution; but, as I understand it, the destination disk must be the same size (or bigger) than the source.  Can you confirm this?

[varun]

My suggestion: re-install Windows on the SSD from scratch using a bootable USB Windows drive.
Then use the old-school way and copy all your files [data/video/music] from HDD to the new SSD.

 

For software programs, just re-install from scratch on the SSD - it should be quite fast.

 

In order to be able to manually copy the data from HDD to SDD, buy an external HDD enclosure and connect to laptop via USB.

Edited April 3, 2020 by varun

[Eindhoven]

6 minutes ago, JaiMaai said:

I've never used a hardware cloning solution; but, as I understand it, the destination disk must be the same size (or bigger) than the source.  Can you confirm this?

 

Not necessary unless the source disk is full.

[Eindhoven]

Still considering whether to get involved...

[JaiMaai]

3 hours ago, Black Ops said:

The software apparently (supposed to) copy ALL, it shows images of BOTH drives, and they are identical in partitions volume size, you name it.

Can you post a pic like this one showing the partitions on the cloned disk?

[OneMoreFarang]

14 minutes ago, JaiMaai said:

I've never used a hardware cloning solution; but, as I understand it, the destination disk must be the same size (or bigger) than the source.  Can you confirm this?

Yes, confirmed.

[JaiMaai]

6 minutes ago, Eindhoven said:

 

Not necessary unless the source disk is full.

Thanks,  I thought they did sector by sector cloning so tried to copy even the free space.

[OneMoreFarang]

9 minutes ago, varun said:

My suggestion: re-install Windows on the SSD from scratch using a bootable USB Windows drive.
Then use the old-school way and copy all your files [data/video/music] from HDD to the new SSD.

 

For software programs, just re-install from scratch on the SSD - it should be quite fast.

 

In order to be able to manually copy the data from HDD to SDD, buy an external HDD enclosure and connect to laptop via USB.

In that way you can copy some things but not all. If you want at the end of the day the exact same setup as previously you will probably spend a day or more on it - if you know what you are doing.

 

Cloning works - even if sometimes it's a little tricky.

[Eindhoven]

7 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Yes, confirmed.

 

You are wrong. This is only the case for Sector by Sector cloning.

 

 

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=01P6EefwDpI

[lopburi3]

I hate that software you tried to use (was Greek to me and never got it to work).  Highly recommend Minitool as it works and does so very easily.  Would clone again using it after making sure you have bios set to boot from HDD as primary and remove any extra drives (USB) during boot process.

 

https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

 

Very good video of process using the above software here.

 

[Eindhoven]

36 minutes ago, JaiMaai said:

Thanks,  I thought they did sector by sector cloning so tried to copy even the free space.

 

Missed the part wherein you stated "hardware"...since it was off-topic. 

[Daffy D]

Haven't bothered to read through all the posts so maybe this has been covered.

 

Create a backup with Macrim Reflect make sure you select the "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows. (usually drive "C")

 

Now restore your back up to the new drive and there you have it.  

 

 

 

[NanLaew]

If the OP is using the latest version of Macrium Reflect, did he pay for it? The last time I looked (about 6 months ago), a lot of the popular disk/partition cloning software, including Reflect, allows you to copy standard disks and partions for free but cloning boot or o/s disks/partitions requires the paid version.

 

I retain a a legacy version of EASEUS's free software for that reason as their latest version also needs to be bought to have full cloning capability.

Edited April 3, 2020 by NanLaew

[varun]

52 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

In that way you can copy some things but not all. If you want at the end of the day the exact same setup as previously you will probably spend a day or more on it - if you know what you are doing.

 

Cloning works - even if sometimes it's a little tricky.

Cloning does indeed work, but it is a crapshoot for Windows.

 

I have used CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) for Mac and cloned HDD's across generations of different OS's (Snow Leopard -> Mountain Lion -> Mavericks -> El Capitan -> Sierra).

Always went through without a single hitch.

 

Besides, I'm offering the OP a workaround solution to get the job done and get on with it.

Doubt he is designing rocket payload delivery systems,

for which he needs exactly the same "setup"? 

 

 

 

Edited April 3, 2020 by varun

[Social Media]

1 hour ago, Eindhoven said:

Still considering whether to get involved...

Please dont !

[Social Media]

21 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

I hate that software you tried to use (was Greek to me and never got it to work).  Highly recommend Minitool as it works and does so very easily.  Would clone again using it after making sure you have bios set to boot from HDD as primary and remove any extra drives (USB) during boot process.

 

https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

 

Very good video of process using the above software here.

 

Minitool is no longer FREE , it guides you through then when you hit "go" you have to upgrade for $59 !!

[Social Media]

1 hour ago, JaiMaai said:

Can you post a pic like this one showing the partitions on the cloned disk?

What are looking for, that an image may help ?

[Social Media]

1 hour ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Two options:

a) Something is incorrect with your BIOS i.e. that the new drive is not set as the boot drive.

b) Your drives are not 100% identical, otherwise it would boot (if the BIOS is correct).

 

Some suggestions:

1) Boot your PC and go to the (BIOS) screen where you can select a boot drive. That is often the F8 key. If you select your new drive and that boot works then look for wrong settings in your BIOS.

2) Book from a (free) Boot CD like i.e. Hiren Boot CD. After you start from the boot CD you have the option to start from you HDD or SDD, try.

3) Use a partition program to look in detail at all your partitions. Is the correct partition active? Are all the other parameters the same?

 

Background info: For many years I used Ghost to clone HDDs and SSD and it always worked. But then I tried this (now maybe two years ago) with Windows 10 and surprisingly Ghost did not clone the disk 1:1.

At that time I bought hardware to clone disks (like suggested above) and that worked perfect. Since then I always use that hardware box. Insert source "disk", insert destination disk, click start, wait maybe 10 minutes (with a SSD), done. It cost a few THB but it prevents lots of headache.

Done ALL this - no difference.

Also used "diskpart" from command line to ensure correct partition and is assigned etc. - NO difference

Edited April 3, 2020 by Black Ops

[treetops]

17 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

If the OP is using the latest version of Macrium Reflect, did he pay for it? The last time I looked (about 6 months ago), a lot of the popular disk/partition cloning software, including Reflect, allows you to copy standard disks and partions for free but cloning boot or o/s disks/partitions requires the paid version.

I used Macrium for the first time ever just a couple of months ago to clone my boot hard drive to solid state drive.  Worked fine and was free.

 

OP.  If you go back to the original HD, does it boot up OK?

Edited April 3, 2020 by treetops