Windows 10: Cloning boot drive to an SSD, cannot boot with cloned drive

I'm sure I screwed something up, but here's my situation. I bought an SSD, unfortunately a little smaller than I should have. In using free Macrium Reflect software to clone my original main drive, I realized I needed a few more gigs of space. The operation requires moving one partition at a time, sequentially, into its place on new SSD layout. I skipped over the "recovery drive" on purpose in order to save GB space on new drive. Now when replacing original drive with the cloned SSD, I just get a quick error message that the drive is missing some boot information. When I attached both of these drives via USB to another PC to compare the drives, they seem identical. Could it be my dropping the "D:-drive" (recovery partition) that's the problem, and is there a simple way to add what may be missing now after the fact? I have time to return the SSD for a larger one if I have to. Thanks.

:)

 

Moving to SSD. Clone or not to clone?

Part of how I keep my SSD fast is to clone it to a platter drive, then clone back. You just want to make sure that you are only cloning teh used space, and not the empty space.


So, again, I isntall Windows to the ssd. Clone to platter drive, then clone back.

I am not sure why, but if I do not do the clone step, the drive's speed, and windows booting, decreases substantially within a week or so.

I am using a Corsair F60 SSD and a Western Digital 500AAKS as drives, and using the free version of Acronis that WD provides, if any of that matters. I am not sure, at this point.

 

boot from cloned ssd installed on cd drive

I have to assume that the cloning software you used made the SSD bootable. You can only confirm that by checking the software's documentation and confirming that you followed the procedure correctly.

I also assume that you have made a system image of the HDD. I also assume that you made a Recovery drive or a System repair disk unless you have an installation disk [which can also do the same job]. You will need this if the cloning has not worked correctly
and you need to restore your system.

The BIOS might not be capable of booting from a SSD/HDD in the CD bay. Whilst that can be a convenient location for doing the cloning, you will almost certainly need to remove the original HDD and fit the SSD
in its bay instead.

Put the old HDD in a USB enclosure so that it can be used as a storage drive but do not connect it to the computer while you are trying to get the SSD to boot. Bootable HDDs & SSDs have "signatures" that the system will look for during booting and finding
multiple signatures will confuse it & probably stop it booting at all.

If, when the SSD has proved itself, you decide to fit the old HDD in the CD bay as an onboard additional storage drive then you will need to format it first so hold off on this until you are completely confident in the SSD.

- - - - - - - - -

When I did this job last year, I used Acronis TI to "clone" to the SSD. Actually, what I did was use Acronis TI to restore a system image to the SSD. That is, in effect, cloning it but I thought that it would be a more reliable way of doing it as TI system
images are tolerant of changed hardware being found.

• I put the SSD in the CD bay to do the image restoration.
• I removed the old HDD and put the SSD in its bay.
• The SSD booted correctly.
• After a while, I reformatted the old HDD and fitted it in the CD bay as an onboard additional storage drive.

Best of luck,

Denis

 

clone drive

Hi Tanya,

Learn how to
clone a hard drive to an SSD here. After cloning, all the files including boot information will be transferred to the SSD.