New HDD won't boot after cloning

I am trying to clone (Acronis True Image 2009) the hard drive on my Dell Inspiron 1720 (Vista with Media direct). Old hard drive is healthy, just wanting to be prepared. I connected the new Hard drive (same size) via a SATA to USB enclosure. I selected the "Automatic" clone procedure and verified the partition sizes were proportionate. I then initiated the clone procedure. I was then prompted to reboot. System rebooted and proceeded with cloning. At some point the system appeared to shut down without any prompt from me(black screen). I assumed this was by design and the Clone was complete. I then disconnected the USB (new HD). NOTE( I had previously done the same thing except I did not disconnect before booting back up and the drives in the new HD were re-assigned. (oops, no "C" drive)
Anyway, as stated, this time I disconnected the USB HD and swapped the Old drive with the new drive. I then turned on the system but the system booted up to the "Dell Hardware Diagnostic"screen. (And yes I did perform a full test and everything checked out OK) From this point I was never able to boot up to Windows Vista.
I re-installed the old hard drive and everything booted just great. Did I miss something? Did I need to do something different to copy the Master Boot Record to the new drive? Is there something about the Dell system that is causing problems?

Also, thinking that the cloning may not have completed, I checked the partition sizes and they appeared to be identical between the old and new drives

I appologize if there is a thread out there to answer my question, if so, please point me in the right direction.

 

warnemj

My guide to Manual Cloning using the TI Rescue CD

Much of the time, cloning to a usb drive is not successful--especially for some brands of computers. My guide illustrates using what is called "reverse clone". My guide is for prior procedures but the overal procedures are still the same.


Cloning Questions
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=241801

 

First try what has been called a reverse clone - put the "new" drive in the computer and the original in the external case. And just as an extra precaution, make the bootable Rescue CD and do the clone with that, instead of from within Windows.

If that doesn't work, again with the Rescue CD, make a Backup (Image) of the original drive on to the external drive. This really needs a third drive just to hold the Image, but if there is enough room on the original drive, transfer the Image from the external to it. Now swap the drives, boot with the CD one more time, and do a Recovery.

PS. Ahhhh ... Grover, you beat me to it. LOL.

 

Thanks folks: I'll give the reverse clone a shot when I get home tonight. It makes sense.

 

Performed reverse clone. After a few tense moments of waiting for the automated "hardware repair" my system booted up and is now running better than ever.

I have one additional question: Is it normal for the drive letters to display differently when looking at ATI from the boot disc. For example, the drive letters were "C", "D" and "E" in Windows, but displayed "D", "E" and "F" (Both hard drives) from ATI (boot disc). This made me a little nervous as it appeared my old drive had been altered. I literally had my fingers crossed the whole time.

Thanks for the help.

 

Yes, the drive letters will be different when booting from the Rescue CD because it uses Linux as the OS. It's a good idea to give your drives unique names instead of the default, "Local Disc". For example, if you have a Western Digital 320Gb drive, name it something like Wd320gb.
This way it is easier to identify them.