[SOLVED] Booting issues when connecting a 2nd SSD

[Misosolar]

Good morning all,

I have 2 SSD's, both have a copy of windows 7 on them. I want to clone my first SSD drive onto the send one, but when I boot from the first drive and have the 2nd drive connected, my computer boots to desktop then immediately shutdown.

However, when i boot from the 2nd drive it it doesn't shutdown immediately and i can see the 1st drive in my file explorer. I don't understand why this is happening.

additional info: A friend tried to clone the 1st ssd onto a random HDD, but that didn't work for some reason. Could that process cause this issue? the 1st SSD has a independent partition labeled "system reserved". initially "system reserved" had its own drive label but we removed it in the disk management.

as you can obviously tell I'm not that computer savvy, ha!

Thank you for the help and your time!

 

[Colif]

Specific steps for a successful clone operation:

-----------------------------

Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD

Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)

If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.

Power off

Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD

Power up

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)

Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive



(Ignore this section if using SDM)

If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that

You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive

Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specifiy the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing



Click the 'Clone' button

Wait until it is done

When it finishes, power off

Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD

This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive

Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order

If good, continue the power up



It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.

Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.



If it works, and it should, all is good.



Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.

This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.



Ask questions if anything is unclear.

 

[jay32267]

I'm not 100% clear on what you did but....

Whenever I clone...immediately after the cloning process....I try and boot with ONLY the destination drive connected....and it usually boots and runs fine.

Only THEN do I power down and add other drives.

I have run into issues (and I believe they were similar to yours) trying to boot with more than one drive installed after a clone.....especially a bootable one.

 

[Misosolar]

I'm not 100% clear on what you did but....

Whenever I clone...immediately after the cloning process....I try and boot with ONLY the destination drive connected....and it usually boots and runs fine.

Only THEN do I power down and add other drives.

I have run into issues (and I believe they were similar to yours) trying to boot with more than one drive installed after a clone.....especially a bootable one.

So the SATA SSD Drives work perfectly fine by themselves. both can operate windows fine. However, the 1st drive needs to be cloned over to the 2nd.

when i boot the first drive while the 2nd is connected my pc shuts down. However, when i boot from my second drive, while the 1st one is connected, it works perfectly fine.

I need it to not shutdown in the first configuration, so i can clone the 1st ssd over to the 2nd.

 

[Misosolar]

Specific steps for a successful clone operation:

-----------------------------

Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD

Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration, if a Samsung SSD)

If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.

Power off

Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD

Power up

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)

Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive



(Ignore this section if using SDM)

If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that

You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive

Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specifiy the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing



Click the 'Clone' button

Wait until it is done

When it finishes, power off

Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD

This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive

Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order

If good, continue the power up



It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.

Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.



If it works, and it should, all is good.



Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.

This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.



Ask questions if anything is unclear.

This is a clear tutorial. Thank you!
I cant do this yet since my drive i want to clone from shuts down when i have the 2nd drive connected. They are both SATA

 

[jay32267]

So the SATA SSD Drives work perfectly fine by themselves. both can operate windows fine. However, the 1st drive needs to be cloned over to the 2nd.

when i boot the first drive while the 2nd is connected my pc shuts down. However, when i boot from my second drive, while the 1st one is connected, it works perfectly fine.

I need it to not shutdown in the first configuration, so i can clone the 1st ssd over to the 2nd.

I'd put the 2nd in another machine and wipe it, partition it and format it and try it again.
I've had strange things happen with two bootable Windows drives.
If it still doesn't boot I would be hesitant of making a copy of it.