Solved Cloned SSD will not boot computer

Howdy -

I'm a newbie on this board, but I'm fairly tech savvy. My real name is Sam, I'm retired (73 y/o), USAF veteran. I'm looking for some help getting my computer to boot from a cloned SSD.

Back story - I am running Windows 11 on a HP 260-p026 with 16GB RAM and a 256GB Kingston internal SSD (C Drive). I've still got about 100GB free space on it, but I decided to go ahead and replace it with a 512GB Crucial MX500 SSD (F Drive). I used Acronis to clone my current SSD to the Crucial SSD using an external USB hookup, but the computer will not boot from the cloned Crucial drive when I install it internally. I re-formatted F drive and re-cloned it three times, but my computer will not boot from it. I also used Macrium to clone it, but still without success.

I'm sure that the problem is that my boot order has the Kingston drive as primary, and that I need to change that to the Crucial drive. However, I'm hesitant to go into BIOS and start changing things around until I get advice from folks who are more familiar with this kind of situation.

Can I go into BIOS and change my boot order so that the Crucial drive is primary, then install it internally and re-boot? Would I need to leave it designated as F Drive, or can I change that to C Drive once the system is re-booted? Would that mess up any file associations, etc? What other recommendations may anyone have?

Any help will be appreciated by this grasshopper!

Hi, Welcome to the ElevenForums

There are members here that would know ways to achieve or fix what you want to do.

But to adjust the boot order in your BIOS, apparently this is common for HP’s. I can not confirm if it’s the same for your 260-p026 though. I had a look at your manual but it didn’t cover this. I know this says “Notebooks” but it also says HP PC’s in the title. I am not sure how to interpret that.

Am I correct in assuming, that your PC is a desktop, possibly with more than two SATA ports on the motherboard?

If that is a correct assumption, then the problem for me, at least would be no problem at all.

I've been cloning hard drives, using Ghost, since 1997.
I don't, nor will I ever, use either of the programs you've mentioned. Just too many problems reported with those programs, over the years.

Using a program like Ghost, that I run from a Bootable DOS Flash Drvive, will do a bit by bit, true clone, or your original drive, and will create a clone that is an exact copy of the original and will indeed boot up your PC. Just connect it to the first SATA port on your motherboard.,

If you were here, with your PC, I'd have you up and running in just a few minutes. The whole process is ridiculously simple.

Good Luck,
TM

TechnoMage2021 said:

Am I correct in assuming, that your PC is a desktop, possibly with more than two SATA ports on the motherboard?

If that is a correct assumption, then the problem for me, at least would be no problem at all.

I've been cloning hard drives, using Ghost, since 1997.
I don't, nor will I ever, use either of the programs you've mentioned. Just too many problems reported with those programs, over the years.

Using a program like Ghost, that I run from a Bootable DOS Flash Drvive, will do a bit by bit, true clone, or your original drive, and will create a clone that is an exact copy of the original and will indeed boot up your PC. Just connect it to the first SATA port on your motherboard.,

If you were here, with your PC, I'd have you up and running in just a few minutes. The whole process is ridiculously simple.

Good Luck,
TM

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I just have the one SATA port - I'm running the new SSD from a USB port with a power supply. I may try that Ghost program.

The cloned drive won't boot from a USB (Windows rules).
You have to attach it to a SATA port and change BIOS boot priority boot manager to the one in the new drive.

I suggest::
- Clone it again. This time use Macrium Reflect. Select the Kingston drive as the source and the Crucial as target.
Drag and drop the partitions from source to target in this order
- EFI partition
- The MSR partition
- The 980M Recovery partition and send it to the right border
- Finally drag and drop the C: partition on the space between the MSR and the recovery partition. Expand so it occupies al the space

Thee big recovery partition is a Factory recover and it is useless after so many updates and upgrades. Don't copy it.

Once the process is finished, shut down and install the new SSD inside the Desktop case and connect it to a the Power Supply and to a SATA connector on the MB. You have to replace the Kinston drive with the Crucial or replace the ODD with the Crucial.
Start the computer and enter BIOS and select the Boot manager on the Crucial as the priority boot drive.
Once you boot the Crucial drive, to use the old Kingston you need to erase all partitions on the it and not only format the old C partition.
I can give you the commands to do the erase once you successfully clone the drive as I mentioned above.

The MB has two SATA connectors. One is blue and the other is white ( SATA 600 +SATA 300). The one attached to the Kingston is the 600 and the one attached to the ODD is 300.
As the computer has a ODD (CD/DVD) you will have to choose. One SSD+ODD or SSD+SSD (no ODD)

Megahertz said:

The cloned drive won't boot from a USB (Windows rules).
You have to attach it to a SATA port and on BIOS change the boot priority boot manager to the one in the new drive.

I suggest::
- Install the new SSD inside the Desktop case and connect it to a the Power Supply and to a SATA conector on the MB.
- Clone it again. This time use Macrium Reflect. Select the Kingston drive as the source and the target.
Drag and drop in this order
- EFI partition
- The MSR partition
- The 980M Recovery partition and send it to the right border
- Finally drag and drop the C: partition on the space between the MSR and the recovery partition. Expand so it occupies al the space

Thee big recovery partition is a Factory recover and it is useless after so many updates and upgrades. Don't copy.

Once the process is finished, restart the computer and enter BIOS and select the Boot manager on the Crucial as the priority boot drive.
Once you boot the Crucial drive, to use the old Kingston you need to erase all partitions on the it and not only format the old C partition.
I can give you the commands to do the erase once you successfully clone the drive as I mentioned above.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'll give that some consideration. I don't absolutely have to get the new drive into the computer right away so at least I have the luxury of time to experiment.

While you were replying my post I was editing it. Please read it again

Megahertz said:

While you were replying my post I was editing it. Please read it again

Click to expand...

Ah, OK. I didn't realize that the ODD connectors are SATA also. Thanks.

I just re-cloned the SDD using Active@ Disk Image 24.0. I got the below error message when the operation finished, and the drive is not visible on the file tree.

Also, is the MSR partition the unallocated partition at the far right?

MS Disk Manager isn't a good manager as it doesn't show MSR partition and you can't trust thee information it provides.
Thee MSR is probably hidden between the EFI an the C: partition and the EFI partition isn't 100% free.
As you cloned the the Kinston to the Crucial without expanding the C: partition the far left isn't a partition. It is an unallocated space.
A good Disk Manager is MiniToll Partition .

As the recovery partition normally doesn't have a letter on it, what is on D: ? A huge image file to do a factory recover or some of your data on it?
Every partition has an ID string. It seems you cloned the drive cluster by cluster and the old drive IDs are replicated on the new one.
With disk manager, right click on the 204.3G partition and assign any letter to it
It will boot. Shut down, remove the old Kingston drive and replace with the new Crucial.

After you have successfully boot with the new drive we can fix the layout of it

Megahertz said:

MS Disk Manager isn't a good manager as it doesn't show MSR partition and you can't trust thee information it provides.
Thee MSR is probably hidden between the EFI an the C: partition and the EFI partition isn't 100% free.
As you cloned the the Kinston to the Crucial without expanding the C: partition the far left isn't a partition. It is an unallocated space.
A good Disk Manager is MiniToll Partition .

As the recovery partition normally doesn't have a letter on it, what is on D: ? A huge image file to do a factory recover or some of your data on it?
Every partition has an ID string. It seems you cloned the drive cluster by cluster and the old drive IDs are replicated on the new one.
With disk manager, right click on the 204.3G partition and assign any letter to it
It will boot. Shut down, remove the old Kingston drive and replace with the new Crucial.

After you have successfully boot with the new drive we can fix the layout of it

Click to expand...

OK, thanks!

You didn't answer:
As the recovery partition normally doesn't have a letter on it, what is on D: ? A huge image file to do a factory recover or some of your data on it?

Megahertz said:

You didn't answer:
As the recovery partition normally doesn't have a letter on it, what is on D: ? A huge image file to do a factory recover or some of your data on it?

Click to expand...

D just shows Recovery that came on the system.

DaSOB said:

D just shows Recovery that came on the system.

Click to expand...

As a Factory Recover it has a Win 10 image from 2016. It is useless.

TechnoMage2021 said:

Am I correct in assuming, that your PC is a desktop, possibly with more than two SATA ports on the motherboard?

If that is a correct assumption, then the problem for me, at least would be no problem at all.

I've been cloning hard drives, using Ghost, since 1997.
I don't, nor will I ever, use either of the programs you've mentioned. Just too many problems reported with those programs, over the years.

Using a program like Ghost, that I run from a Bootable DOS Flash Drvive, will do a bit by bit, true clone, or your original drive, and will create a clone that is an exact copy of the original and will indeed boot up your PC. Just connect it to the first SATA port on your motherboard.,

If you were here, with your PC, I'd have you up and running in just a few minutes. The whole process is ridiculously simple.

Good Luck,
TM

Click to expand...

Are you "Old Casper" in disguise ? Hope so . I am also a big fan of Ghost. I have tried the version by Broadcom. It works great but the screen is so small. Have you figured out a way to make the user interface more readable ? I may need to get a magnifying glass.

I have used many drive images and for me the best is Macrium Reflect.

Hi @DaSOB

Referring to your Windows Disk Management Screenshot in your post #8, ( and assuming that both the SSDs are internally connected) you are getting the signature collision since the Unique Ids of both the disks are same. But that shouldn't be a problem since the cloned disk is an exact replica of your system disk. Even sector 0 where the unique id is present is an exact replica of sector 0 of your system disk.

Now just remove the 256GB Kingston SSD and plug in the 500GB Crucial SSD into that slot. If the cloning is perfect, your system should boot into it without any change in the BIOS. ( What you do with the removed Kingston is your lookout but keep it safe and don't do anythng till your system boots with the Crucial SSD.)

Since the cloned drive is an exact replica of the system drive all the partitions are also of the same size leaving 243.23GB space unallocated. ( It is not the MSR partition. The MSR partition will always be in-between the 260MB ESP partition and the 204.03 System partition. Disk Management will not show it.)

Once you have confirmed that the system boots with the Crucial SSD, using a third party Partitioning program like MiniTool Partition Wizard you can move the 17GB Recovery partition and 980 MB WinRE partition to the right, thus expanding the system partition.

I recommend using MiniTool Partition Wizard V9.1 for that. ( In later versions "Move" may not be free) Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition 9.1 for windows - Filepuma.com

Megahertz said:

As a Factory Recover it has a Win 10 image from 2016. It is useless.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I can ditch that and use the additional space.

jumanji said:

Hi @DaSOB

Referring to your Windows Disk Management Screenshot in your post #8, ( and assuming that both the SSDs are internally connected) you are getting the signature collision since the Unique Ids of both the disks are same. But that shouldn't be a problem since the cloned disk is an exact replica of your system disk. Even sector 0 where the unique id is present is an exact replica of sector 0 of your system disk.

Now just remove the 256GB Kingston SSD and plug in the 500GB Crucial SSD into that slot. If the cloning is perfect, your system should boot into it without any change in the BIOS. ( What you do with the removed Kingston is your lookout but keep it safe and don't do anythng till your system boots with the Crucial SSD.)

Since the cloned drive is an exact replica of the system drive all the partitions are also of the same size leaving 243.23GB space unallocated. ( It is not the MSR partition. The MSR partition will always be in-between the 260MB ESP partition and the 204.03 System partition. Disk Management will not show it.)

Once you have confirmed that the system boots with the Crucial SSD, using a third party Partitioning program like MiniTool Partition Wizard you can move the 17GB Recovery partition and 980 MB WinRE partition to the right, thus expanding the system partition.

I recommend using MiniTool Parttion Wizard V9.1 for that. ( In later versions "Move" may not be free) Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition 9.1 for windows - Filepuma.com

Click to expand...

Thanks, Jumanji. I did switch out the SSD's, but the system still won't boot with the cloned disk. I've cloned it with Acronis, Macrium and Active@ with the same result - the system won't boot from it. I find that odd since when I went from HDD to the Kingston SDD, I cloned the SSD and installed it, and the system came right up.

For the cloning process, I'm using a USB 3.0 connector since I only have one internal disk bay.

Megahertz said:

I have used many drive images and for me the best is Macrium Reflect.

Click to expand...

I'm going to try using Macrium again, but this time I'll use the drag and drop you suggested.

Megahertz said:

The cloned drive won't boot from a USB (Windows rules).
You have to attach it to a SATA port and change BIOS boot priority boot manager to the one in the new drive.

Click to expand...

Just so I understand, I would go into BIOS and change the boot priority to the Crucial drive. Then I would power down, change out the drives, and then power back up. Correct?

OK. Then I don't know what exactly is the problem with the cloning. I had cloned my 1TB HDD onto a 1TB Crucial SSD which was plugged into a dock.The SSD was already formatted before cloning ( so it had its own unique ID) and the cloning was done using Macrium Reflect. After cloning, I could access the SSD in the dock without any problem. It in fact had a different unique ID . That meant the Macrium reflect hadn't cloned Sector 0. Before I replaced the HDD in the sytem with the cloned SSD , I changed the Unique ID of the SSD to the same unique ID of the HDD. When I replaced the HDD with the SSD in the PC, the PC booted without any problem. That is why I said the unique ID being the same is not a problem.
My cloning experience here: Is my HDD failing? - Windows 10 Help Forums