Struggled for days trying to clone my notebook hard drive to a new Kingston SSDNOW V300 drive so that it would boot, but I finally found success. After searching forums and seeing hundreds of stories about what worked and what did not, I thought I'd add my solution in case it might help someone else.
My desktop hard drive is dying. I decided to replace it with the Momentus XT 750 from my notebook and replace the Momentus with an SSD 240gb. I am using an OEM Windows 8 Asus notebook.
When I originally cloned the factory notebook drive to the Momentus, I had no issues and I did not expect any when I went to the SSD. Boy, was I wrong.
First, the Acronis True Image software licensed by Kingston did not work. It would not even start the clone process citing that the Momentus configuration was not compatible.
Second, I tried the Seagate version of the Acronis True Image from their site. It allowed me to clone the disk, but it would not boot. Windows said that winload.efi was missing---it was not and I am sure that this was a symptomatic error.
I will admit to being new to GPT and UEFI/EFI and I was really not interested in complicated (to me) backup and restore procedures--and there are tons posted here and on other sites. I wanted to connect the drives, press "go" and have the software work. I also did not want to invest in expensive cloning software that I'd probably only use one time.
So, I began my search for another option. I tried trial/free versions of Acronis True Image, EasUS Disk Copy, Clonezilla, DriveClone, Paramount Reflect, and Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite. For all of these, I tried with the drives installed in the notebook and/or in an external enclosure when the software supported it. None of these worked; all failing to begin to boot (booted straight to bios) or failing with windows saying there were missing files. I have no doubt that I could have found a way to get the cloning done with one of these programs if I knew all of the right settings and was prepared for a multi-part procedure. However, in their various menu driven or default modes, I could not get the drive to successfully clone and boot.
The fact that I was going from 750gb to 240gb appears may have been part of the problem, but everywhere I read said it was not a big deal. After all of these failures and after installing and removing the SSD from the notebook literally dozens of times, I began to believe that possibly the hybrid Momentus drive was the problem (i.e. the hybrid nature of the Momentus was the issue).
In the end, I paid for Paragon's "Migrate OS to SSD 3.0" ($19.95 with discounts available). With the SSD in the external enclosure, the software successfully cloned the drive in about 20 minutes (fastest of any of the programs tried). I removed the Momentus, installed the SSD, and for the first time, the notebook booted. Migrate also came with software to draw the recover image from my original factory hard drive and copy it to a USB drive so that if I ever needed to go back to day 1, I still can.
I am not trying to plug the Paragon software, but just wanted to relate my experience and hopefully save someone else the hours of frustration I experienced. Good luck.
My desktop hard drive is dying. I decided to replace it with the Momentus XT 750 from my notebook and replace the Momentus with an SSD 240gb. I am using an OEM Windows 8 Asus notebook.
When I originally cloned the factory notebook drive to the Momentus, I had no issues and I did not expect any when I went to the SSD. Boy, was I wrong.
First, the Acronis True Image software licensed by Kingston did not work. It would not even start the clone process citing that the Momentus configuration was not compatible.
Second, I tried the Seagate version of the Acronis True Image from their site. It allowed me to clone the disk, but it would not boot. Windows said that winload.efi was missing---it was not and I am sure that this was a symptomatic error.
I will admit to being new to GPT and UEFI/EFI and I was really not interested in complicated (to me) backup and restore procedures--and there are tons posted here and on other sites. I wanted to connect the drives, press "go" and have the software work. I also did not want to invest in expensive cloning software that I'd probably only use one time.
So, I began my search for another option. I tried trial/free versions of Acronis True Image, EasUS Disk Copy, Clonezilla, DriveClone, Paramount Reflect, and Paragon Hard Disk Manager Suite. For all of these, I tried with the drives installed in the notebook and/or in an external enclosure when the software supported it. None of these worked; all failing to begin to boot (booted straight to bios) or failing with windows saying there were missing files. I have no doubt that I could have found a way to get the cloning done with one of these programs if I knew all of the right settings and was prepared for a multi-part procedure. However, in their various menu driven or default modes, I could not get the drive to successfully clone and boot.
The fact that I was going from 750gb to 240gb appears may have been part of the problem, but everywhere I read said it was not a big deal. After all of these failures and after installing and removing the SSD from the notebook literally dozens of times, I began to believe that possibly the hybrid Momentus drive was the problem (i.e. the hybrid nature of the Momentus was the issue).
In the end, I paid for Paragon's "Migrate OS to SSD 3.0" ($19.95 with discounts available). With the SSD in the external enclosure, the software successfully cloned the drive in about 20 minutes (fastest of any of the programs tried). I removed the Momentus, installed the SSD, and for the first time, the notebook booted. Migrate also came with software to draw the recover image from my original factory hard drive and copy it to a USB drive so that if I ever needed to go back to day 1, I still can.
I am not trying to plug the Paragon software, but just wanted to relate my experience and hopefully save someone else the hours of frustration I experienced. Good luck.