Windows 8 Image to SSD w/ Acronis 2014

[indy-pc]

I'm trying to restore a Windows 8 image from a 500GB HDD to a 110GB SSD and I can't seem to get it to work. Here's what I've done so far:

• I have made 3 image backups of the drive using Acronis True Image Home 2014 while the HDD is connected to my bench system--initial whole drive (unaltered), OS only (unaltered) and whole drive after shrinking the OS partition to make the allocated space on the drive less than 110GB.
  
• With the SSD connected to my bench system, I've tried to restore all 3 images within the Acronis UI. The first image was too big and Acronis wouldn't let me restore it to the smaller drive, so I tried using EaseUS Todo Free instead. In all cases, I'm getting a "no boot disc" error on the client's system.
  
• I have a Windows 8 Pro (x64) OEM DVD that I can boot to on my bench system with only the restored image SSD attached. From the Troubleshoot>Advanced menu, I've tried to do an Automatic Repair to no avail. I've also pulled up the command prompt while booted to this DVD and tried:
  

  bootrec /fixmbr
  bootrec /fixboot
  bootrec /scanos
  bootrec /rebuildbcd

  with no luck there, either.
  
• I've tried to use a bootable Acronis USB on my client's system (no optical drive), but I end up getting an endless boot loop. The system starts to load the Acronis OS. I select the option to boot to the recovery console. The screen goes black with an Acronis logo in the upper-left of the screen, but then the system just reboots instead of loading the OS like you would expect. I've tried the USB on another system and it boots into the recovery console just fine.

I am at a loss here. Has anyone else tried to use Acronis TI Home 2014 to migrate to a small SSD on a Windows 8 system recently? What am I missing? Why can't I get this to work?

 

[TimM]

Does the SSD manufacturer offer a drive migration tool? I almost always use Samsung SSDs, and their tool works perfectly.

 

[indy-pc]

It's an Intel 520 series (120GB) that he upgraded another system to a year or two ago. I'll have to check if they have Intel has a migration tool. I don't know if they do off-hand or not. If it was previously on the drive, it's long been wiped off. :-(

 

[ZATZAi]

Does True Image 2014 allow restoring to dissimilar hardware? Or do you need True Image 2014 Premium for that? I know for 2013 you needed the plus Pack to do this...

 

[indy-pc]

That is a premium feature, but the hard drive is the only different piece of hardware. From the research I've done, it's supposedly doable with TI Home, but it doesn't seem to be working for me. I could always buy a copy of premium, but I'd rather not right now.

 

[Draax]

I'm using Acronis True imager every day, and never had any problems with migrations.
How I do it:

Saving the disk
Disk and partition backup > switch to disk mode > select disk > destination C:\ my backups > backup now

Recover image to new disk
When it finished press Recover on the disk you would like to recover > switch to disk mode > check the box > the choose recovery destination > select disk you would like to recover to.

This works all the times for me all the time, hope it works.

 

[MobileTechie]

Yes I've had lots of problems imaging from HDD to SSD using common tools like Acronis and Macrium.

Paragon do a special SSD migration tool which I've found to be useful.

 

[indy-pc]

Yes I've had lots of problems imaging from HDD to SSD using common tools like Acronis and Macrium.

Paragon do a special SSD migration tool which I've found to be useful.

This sounds too good to be true, so I'm sure there's a catch somewhere. With Paragon:

1. Can I boot into my bench system (Win7 BIOS/MBR), connect the source (Win8 UEFI/GPT) and destination (SSD) drives via SATA and clone?
2. Will the destination drive be bootable on the laptop which has different hardware than the system it was cloned on (my bench system)?
3. Will their bootable USB boot on a UEFI/GPT system or would I have to change to legacy mode (BIOS/MBR)?
4. If 1 and 2 won't work, would I need a new license for each system that comes across my bench or can the license "float" from one system to another as long as I uninstall it each time?

 

[MobileTechie]

This sounds too good to be true, so I'm sure there's a catch somewhere. With Paragon:

1. Can I boot into my bench system (Win7 BIOS/MBR), connect the source (Win8 UEFI/GPT) and destination (SSD) drives via SATA and clone?
2. Will the destination drive be bootable on the laptop which has different hardware than the system it was cloned on (my bench system)?
3. Will their bootable USB boot on a UEFI/GPT system or would I have to change to legacy mode (BIOS/MBR)?
4. If 1 and 2 won't work, would I need a new license for each system that comes across my bench or can the license "float" from one system to another as long as I uninstall it each time?

It's been well over a year since I last used it on a troublesome system so I can't remember. I'm pretty sure the licence is for the PC you use it on. How transferable that is in reality I could not say.

As I remember using it, it's designed to be run on a working Windows system. You download the software on the laptop in question, install it and follow the instructions and you're done. It detects the disks etc so I can't see it working via your bench setup.

Last time I used it was on my own laptop where I'd already wasted a week getting a Samsung 830 to work despite using methods that worked before and the tools that came with etc etc etc. This Paragon apps sorted it no problems. However I can't upgrade to 8.1 for some unspecified reason. No idea if it's related.

 

[indy-pc]

I just wanted to give a little closure to this topic in case anyone else runs into this issue in the future.

I was actually eligible to upgrade to Acronis TI 2015, which was just released, so I did do that. The new version doesn't have a Premium option. They've decided to make the premiums features available to anyone who buys the software.

In the end, I needed to download a free media add-on plugin from the Acronis website and a Win8.1 AIK. I was able to create a WinPE ISO that I transferred to a USB using a freeware software called ISOtoUSB. With that, I was able to boot into the Acronis recovery USB and clone the HDD to the SSD without an issue.

I think I added some grey hairs to my head with this job, but at least it's done and I have a new tool that I can use.

Thank you all for the tips and advice!

 

[Kaizen]

I just wanted to give a little closure to this topic in case anyone else runs into this issue in the future.

I was actually eligible to upgrade to Acronis TI 2015, which was just released, so I did do that. The new version doesn't have a Premium option. They've decided to make the premiums features available to anyone who buys the software.

We were considering doing the upgrade. What was the premium feature that was not included which was needed for the job?

 

[ZATZAi]

Mmm, thanks for the update. I've done a number of HDD to HDD and SSD to SSD but never a HDD to SSD with my copy of Acronis. So that's a point for upgrading to 2015 I suppose...

It looks like 2015 also supports both Windows and Mac with the same software now too...