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To keep it short, over the weekend, I attempted to replace the spinning disk in my < 2yo laptop with a SSD. The laptop has a second hdd bay and I had bought the caddy and connector, so the idea was to install the drive and clone the existing drive to the new SSD, then simply change the boot device. Somewhere things went wrong and the system refuses to boot from the SSD. For the time being, I'm going to blame the cloning software until I get a chance to try another one. (I used the software which came with the SSD)
Before I get too far, have others successfully cloned Winten? (or is it just me?)
What I did:
0: install disk cloning software with license from SDD manufacturer (name withheld until proven incompetent)
1: create bootable USB with clone utilities
2: boot to USB and perform disk clone
3: boot to new drive...failed...looked promising at first...login screen comes up for a few seconds, then the screen goes black leaving just a spinning cursor. I left it that way for hours yesterday. No dice. 
4: boot to safemode on original disk and disable sync services from cloning software (after reading about this issue on their website)
5: boot to USB again and repeat clone process
6: boot to new drive again and get almost the same thing as before, but now the screen just goes black...not even a cursor???
7: think to self...'maybe I need to take the original drive out completely', so disassemble laptop and pull the original drive out...snap cover back on but leave the screws out
8: boot to the new drive again...bluescreen...problem with the device or something
9: move drive to now empty main drive bay...(does it matter?)
10: goto 8 
11: reinstall original spinning drive back into main drive bay and we're back to square one!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Assuming your original disk was installed as drive 0 you may want to remove it and connect your SSD as drive 0, if you have it in a different slot the system may think it is drive 1 (or 2 or whatever) and not like it.
Update: Never mind [Sorry, I missed reading your step#9 properly.]
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Yes, I tried this already, but perhaps it was a timing issue. I think I should have taken the spinner out before trying to boot to ssd for the first time. (guessing)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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This was around a year ago. The big name SSDs bundled cloning software did not work at all with "Winten". I called big name's tech support and they told me they were working on getting some software for that, but he didn't know when they would have it. No, he could not tell me where to get third party software, but I should "Google it!" Another tech on a second call said, "I can't tell you what to use, but I use this one." Sadly I don't remember what I used. I hooked the SSD to a USB port with a cable that was recommended for that. I just saw the cable the other day and it had USB on one end and an SATA hookup on the other. I didn't fool around with trying to hook up two drives I just took out the HDD and put in the SSD. It worked.
Leadership equals wrecked ship.
If you think you are leading my look behind you. You are alone.
If you think I am leading you, You are lost.
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I went through this process last fall with my ancient Acer 6930 laptop; it originally came with Vista Home Premium, and is now running Win10.
My process was like this:
1. Install SSD in USB external drive enclosure.
2. Using a 2012 edition of Acronis Home Premium and their Flash drive boot tool, clone system drive to SSD.
3. Replace laptop system drive with SSD.
4. Boot.
No muss, no fuss.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Thanks, I used Acronis True Image. The only difference between your process and mine was that I left the original drive in, thinking that if the ssd worked, I could repurpose the original disk to just storage. Only after the ssd failed did I remove the original drive and put the ssd in slot 0. Perhaps all those other partitions caused an issue???
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I think that's the case. I was very careful about handling my original hard drive, since I wanted to preserve it until I had some confidence that the SSD was working properly. After I cloned it, I removed it from the machine before I tried booting with the SSD.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I have a Dell M6500 and was replacing one of it's two drives, the boot drive, with an SSD. Acronis did explain (warn) that for a laptop you needed to put the SSD in the boot drive port and the boot drive as an external. Then you boot with a bootable (USB in my case) and clone from there.
When I actually followed the instructions it actually worked.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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W∴ Balboos wrote: followed the instructions
Hmmm, you may be on to something there...I shall go back and look for this documentation. 
Thanks, I will try this later...it's good that I haven't put the screws back in yet!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Whilst you look this stuff up: the bootable USB was made through the Acronis software - which I initially installed on my original still-working bootable system. In puts in enough linux and acronis to do the deed.
| Ravings en masse^ |
|---|
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Instead of cloning the disk, you may want to try taking an image of the disk on an external drive, remove the spinning disk from the machine, install the SSD, boot from the image's recovery media and burn the image onto the SSD. I have only done this once, and it worked, but I may have lucked out on that occasion. I use Macrium's Reflect (free version) to create and restore images.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
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 Good advice! I'll keep this in mind.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I used AOMEI Partition Assistant - it's got a free version which works really well - it has a "Migrate OS to SSD" wizard which does all the work for you. Took about 30 mins on my system and I have had no problems whatsoever since.
AOMEI Partition Assistant[^]
All I did was stick the SSD in as a second drive, run the program - about 30 minutes - and remove the old drive.
I will admit to doing a full image backup just before I did it, but that's apparently because I'm paranoid... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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I admit, I was going to title it 'Oi, I shoulda listened to Griff', (AOME! spokesman) but I wanted to see if it was me or Acronis. It seems that it may be me failing to read instructions! I promise, if it fails again, I'll give it a go!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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They ought to pay me per mention - I'd be rich!
Or at least, not quite as poor as I am now ... 
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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kmoorevs wrote:
I admit, I was going to title it 'Oi, I shoulda listened to Griff', (AOME! spokesman) but I wanted to see if it was me or Acronis. It seems that it may be me failing to read instructions! I promise, if it fails again, I'll give it a go! |
I've been using Acronis True Image since about version 9 in 2007. Never had an issue, even managed on many an occasion to clone a HDD from an old computer and image it back in to a new computer with different hardware and keep all data and programs running and Windows activated. Great when old machines are running specific workshop machines and you can't get the software any more or it only runs on older Windows version.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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+1 for AOMI! I successfully used it to clone an old ASUS laptop to a SanDisk SSD.
I have also been successful cloning to a Samsung SSD using the software that came with the new drive.
Both were Win10.
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I think you finally have the pieces for this, i have done this so many times, it's science.
1) put the destination (SSD) in the drive 0 bay you are ultimately targeting.
(In the old days, it affected boot sector configuration, and partition ordering)
2) when in doubt, connect the source drive to External USB, its slower, but it it doesnt interfere.
(I have not had to do this in 2-3 cycles of hardware, though)
3) After your restore, NEVER leave your old disk in on boot, or anything. The first time windows
comes to life, it is kinda wigging out. It knows the drive changed. Giving it no choices helps.
It boots up, and USUALLY requires you to reboot.
4) Sometimes drivers are required. I have had ONE case, where I had to put the SSD in, and windows
installed some drivers to deal with it. I removed the SSD, and clean booted. The drivers stick
around... Then booting worked. * required if switching drive types in the old IDE/SCSI days *
5) after you get the clean boot. Format your old HD externally and use it for storage via USB.
Then put it back in the machine in the other bay.
** Note I ALMOST never EVER do this. Even with SSD upgrades. I set it aside as a FALLBACK Backup.
** If my SSD ever fails, I pop this guy in, and at least I am up and running, can start restores.
I recently used this process with a single bay winten machine with the new super small SSD drives (as in a tablet). I had to buy a funky adapter to plug the original into USB. And I used an external DVD to boot from (I do this stuff a lot, still have DVDs with software). WORKED FIRST TIME, perfectly.
HTH
Kirk Out!
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Great answer Kirk, I appreciate it! I'm going to try again this afternoon. Also, I agree about keeping the original drive for backup. I'm pretty sure I can get by on 480GB for everything anyway. 
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I have used the Samsung utility that works with both the EVO and the Pro lines a number of times and it has always worked flawlessly.
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kmoorevs wrote: "Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
Spock's Beard fan?
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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TNCaver wrote: Spock's Beard fan?
Yep, discovered them about 10 years ago and have all their studio albums. Great band, even without Neal!
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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I am Groot. I am Groot. I am Groot!
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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..great music 
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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