Problem Cloning to Intel X25-M SSD

I am trying to clone a hard drive to an 80 GB (usable 75 GB) Intel X25-M SSD which I am doing by following the tutorial:

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/16043.aspx
How to Clone a Laptop Hard Drive with Acronis True Image

and doing the "reverse clone" by putting the SSD in the laptop and the hardrive in an external USB enclosure and by having the bootable version of Acronis TrueImage Home 2009 (latest update) on the DVD drive.

I am using the Thinkpad X200s laptop with the latest chipset and the Intel storage matrix is installed on the original hard drive which is running Vista Business x86.

Everything works fine except when I reboot it gets as far as the signon screen but only shows the password signon and not the fingerprint signon. The bluetooth mouse works but not the trackpoint nor the keyboard.

It does not work in "safe mode" either.

Nor does it work when I try to change the BIOS from eSATA AHCI to compatibility mode.

The hard drive has only about 50 GB used and the SSD has a usable capacity of 75 GB.

I cloned it a second time with the same results.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

TIA

 

davidf:

The article that you referenced has a fundamental error in it. The last step has you reboot after cloning with both the old and new disks attached. That is a no-no.

Try the procedure again, but this time wipe the SSD first so that you destroy any existing partitions on it. You can do this with the "Prepare New Disk" feature in TI or from one of the utilities furnished with the SSD. Then try a reverse clone as you describe. When the clone finishes, shut down the PC and install the SSD after removing the existing internal disk. Do not repeat the mistake in the article, quoted below:

 

Hi Mark,
I tried as you had suggest. I did it twice even and it still gives the same results.

After the cloning process and I startup the first time some messages flash quickly on the screen, too quickly to read, just as the bios is coming up.

If I reboot I no longer see the messages.

I think there is some problem with use of the special partition from Lenovo/IBM in the Thinkpad as in the case of the tutorial where they used the older Thinkpad T61.

Could I please get some telephone support? I have wasted so much time doing this and I think I should get some support from Acronis.

TIA

 

davidf,

Clones are sometimes hit and miss. I suggest using image/restore.

By the way, how large is your old HD? I know it has 50 GB used but sectors in use may extend beyond the 75 GB mark.

 

Hi Brian,
Thanks for answering. The old HD is 160 GB and I did run Perfect Disk defrag to consolidate the disk space as well as a boot time defrag but it looks like it is beyond the 75 GB mark. But the cloning doesn't do image copy but file copy so I don't see how this would be a problem.

Otherwise, how can I fix it? How can I do image/restore without an additional disk drive?

TIA

 

davidf:

Image files are compressed, so perhaps it may fit on your old drive. Try this:

1. Running from the old drive, turn off system restore to delete all restore points (they won't survive imaging anyway and they just add to the size of the image file). Reboot.
2. Run TI from within Windows and create a full-drive image. Save the image file to the existing hard disk. Hopefully it won't completely fill the disk.
3. Put the SSD in the laptop and the old disk in a USB enclosure.
4. Boot from the Acronis recovery CD
5. Restore the image from the old disk to the SSD.

Step 2) works because Acronis creates a "point in time" snapshot of the drive; therefore the image file will not contain anything added after the point when TI begins the backup operation. All of this is, however, contingent on the image file being able to fit in the unused space on the existing disk.

 

David,

Is this true? I don't know for certain. I thought TI did a sector based clone. I do know that TI does a file based restore.

A slight variation on Mark's procedure. When you have removed as much as you can from your OS, resize the C: drive to 75 GB and create a partition in the unallocated space. Image the C: drive to the second partition. Install the SSD internally and the 160 GB HD in a USB enclosure. Restore the image.