HDD to SSD clone works fine, BIOS doesnt recognize it

[zrkraus]

Hi, so I just got done cloning my 1 tb hdd to my new 500 gb ssd. All the partitions were set the right way, I shrunk my c drive to fit the new ssd, and I cloned it using macrium reflect. Afterwards everything looked good, disk management recognizes the new ssd, with the exact same partitions (with the smaller c drive of course), my computer even recognizes it as a new D drive with all the same data, but when I run my BIOS to switch boot priority, the ssd isn't even recognized. Unless I missed some type of formatting issue im at a loss as to whats going wrong, any insight?

 

[USAFRet]

You missed a crucial step in the process.

At the end of the clone process, you need to power OFF, disconnect the old drive, and allow the system to try to boot up from the new drive on its own.
The new drive should never be seen as the D.

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)
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
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 as necessary.
Delete the 450MB Recovery Partition, here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4f1b84ac-b193-40e3-943a-f45d52e23685/cant-delete-extra-healthy-recovery-partitions-and-healthy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall
-----------------------------

 

[zrkraus]

You missed a crucial step in the process.

At the end of the clone process, you need to power OFF, disconnect the old drive, and allow the system to try to boot up from the new drive on its own.
The new drive should never be seen as the D.

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)
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
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 as necessary.
Delete the 450MB Recovery Partition, here:
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/4f1b84ac-b193-40e3-943a-f45d52e23685/cant-delete-extra-healthy-recovery-partitions-and-healthy-efi-system-partition?forum=w8itproinstall
-----------------------------

So the actual space used on the current hdd is well below the 500 gb limit of the new ssd, only about 145 gb used on the c drive, plus the system reserved partition (500mb), and the healthy(recovery partition) (only 466 mb). Just to verify, it is okay to shrink the C drive partition to fit the new ssd, cause the whole partition has 930 gb of allocated space, which is obviously well above the 500gb limit of the new ssd.

 

[USAFRet]

So the actual space used on the current hdd is well below the 500 gb limit of the new ssd, only about 145 gb used on the c drive, plus the system reserved partition (500mb), and the healthy(recovery partition) (only 466 mb). Just to verify, it is okay to shrink the C drive partition to fit the new ssd, cause the whole partition has 930 gb of allocated space, which is obviously well above the 500gb limit of the new ssd.

With Macrium, you do not need to shrink the C partition.
It only takes the actual data space.

1TB drive with 145GB consumed space will clone into a 500GB drive no problem.

You can if you want to, but absolutely not necessary.

 

[zrkraus]

So the actual space used on the current hdd is well below the 500 gb limit of the new ssd, only about 145 gb used on the c drive, plus the system reserved partition (500mb), and the healthy(recovery partition) (only 466 mb). Just to verify, it is okay to shrink the C drive partition to fit the new ssd, cause the whole partition has 930 gb of allocated space, which is obviously well above the 500gb limit of the new ssd.

With Macrium, you do not need to shrink the C partition.
It only takes the actual data space.

1TB drive with 145GB consumed space will clone into a 500GB drive no problem.

You can if you want to, but absolutely not necessary.

So I encountered this problem before and I feel like this is where things may be going wrong. When I open up macrium and select my current hdd to clone, after selecting all the partitions and clicking copy I get a msg that says "Not all copied, Insufficient space" and it copies over the system reserved and the c drive partition, but not this 3rd partition thats there. https://imgur.com/a/RAEc9Ly heres whats going on exactly. The only thing missing from the image is the msg i mentioned earlier. Step by step of what im doing here is I checked off each of the partitions from the source disk, clicked copy selected partitions right above the destination disk, and then the above mentioned msg appeared. This is why I shrunk the C drive partition when I first tried cloning it. (*update* this is the recovery partition i founf out through my disk management, so do i need to keep this?)

 

[zrkraus]

So I went ahead and just allocated some space for that recovery partition and tried running the clone but i got this error this time https://imgur.com/a/ZICl6Os. Im just totally lost at this point.

 

[USAFRet]

You almost certainly only need the beginning 500MB partition, and then the C partition.
The trailing one, 466MB, can be left off.

Try it that way and see what happens.

 

[zrkraus]

You almost certainly only need the beginning 500MB partition, and then the C partition.
The trailing one, 466MB, can be left off.

Try it that way and see what happens.

So i went ahead with cloning it minus the third partition and things seem to be going okay. Ive booted a few times and everything started up beautifully. The only weird thing that happened is when I started the clone macrium warned me that I was replacing some volume (the one I left a img of earlier) and wanted to make sure I was okay with doing so. I can only assume this was something left over from the first failed cloning attempt and presume that things will be okay. Otherwise I think everythings all good. Thanks alot for the steps and the help!

 

[USAFRet]

Good deal !