11/23/20 – Strange USB Boot problem that I’m thinking is Windows oriented

Anonymous

Something I’ve always done over the years is run weekly 100% mirror image bootable backup clones of the C-drive in my ThinkPad laptops…using spare USB cable connected SSD hard drives. [ connect the drive, run ‘Acronis True Image’ cloning software that I use, done ]

From time to time I’d boot the laptop from a USB backup drive, always worked perfectly…but mostly I’d just make the weekly backups for peace of mind in case the C-drive should ever fail.

But discovered a pesky little problem as I’ve been setting up a new ThinkPad P52 to replace my older P51. After I finished setting up the new P52 C-drive, I cloned it to a USB attached hard drive like I’ve done on the P51 a couple hundred times…and then just to be sure it worked, tried to boot the P52 back from the cloned USB attached drive.

Failed…blue screen error message: “Inaccessible Boot Device”.

TROUBLE SHOOTING SUMMARY SO FAR:

The P52 ThinkPad boots up normally / works perfectly from its internal C-drive.

All USB flash drives and/or USB cabled hard drives that I plug in all operate normally.

The P52 laptop sees them all, adds them to the list of other drives in the laptop (c, d, e, f, etc.).

I can read/ write to them business as usual, click open / look at content inside normally.

My cloning software works like always because I’ve taken cloned copies and physically installed them inside the laptop as the internal C-drive and the laptop comes right up normally / works perfectly, etc. I simply cannot BOOT FROM a USB connected clone any longer.

I’ve spent hours over a few days Internet searching, trying this, trying that, no help.

I’ve tried different SSD hard drives, different cables, different USB ports, no help.

Ran a few check-disk kinds of scans and the SSD’s are rock solid as always.

Ensured all Lenovo ThinkPad updates are downloaded and installed.

Ensured all Windows updates are downloaded and installed.

Then started trying the approach of uninstalling Windows updates one at a time but it’s very time consuming and several of the "security related Win updates" wouldn’t let me uninstall them.

So I decided to go back and ensure everything sill worked OK on the original P51, and to my surprise it fails the same way. Been quite a while since I actually did a USB Boot on the original P51 so I assume something must have changed during the past several months and I’m thinking the Win 10 Pro software is the common denominator.

Thought I’d check here with the Brain Trust and see if anyone might know of a specific Win 10 related finding / fix for this situation…thanks a lot in advance.

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Anonymous

2020-11-23T22:50:47+00:00

Hi,

I'm Independent Advisor not Microsoft employee or support person. I have deep enough Windows knowledge and you may trust me. It's a pleasure for me to help others and I'll do all my best to help you.

I'm sorry but I'm a little bit confused.

You cloned old P51 drive to the second USB connected drive and P51 stopped booting after this, right?

P52 boots normally from its original drive but cannot boot after you replace this drive with cloning one?

Please note, Windows cannot boot from USB drive.
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Anonymous

2020-11-24T05:26:09+00:00

Hi,

Here is what I found out.. My TrueImage does in fact Clone. It turns out to be far to slow to deal with at the moment so I used pre-existing images I had saved.. I tried both Windows 10 and Windows 7.. Both failed to boot from SSD in a USB enclosure.. They both tried but failed right after the Windows Logo screen..

The USB connection did not cause a problem with the actual recovery of the images as I was able to take the SSD out of the USB enclosure and hook it up with a SATA connection, and they both booted right up..

I tried recovering the image to the SSD while connected to SATA and it worked.. I then put the SSD back in the USB enclosure and it failed..

It is entirely possible that some USB connections may in fact boot properly when others do not due to the SATA to USB conversion chipset, but that us just a guess..

It seems to me that I do remember being able to boot into windows using a USB drive at one time, but it has been years since that might have happened..

At one time there was a "Windows To Go" that I am pretty sure would boot from USB.. That was the intention for it to be portable..

So your Clones should work if hooked up internally, but not as USB drive..

What I ended up doing on my machine was to hook up a eSATA cable so that I could boot from a external drive.. This was before SSDs and USB 3.0 and it was much faster than using USB 2.0..

Let us know what you think about this...
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Anonymous

2020-11-24T03:59:10+00:00

Hi,

Were the cloned drives that did work on the P51 Windows 10 ?

It seems to me that there were changes made in Windows 10 that basically disabled booting the OS from a USB device..

I also use Acronis, but I do not even know if mine will Clone.. I have always saved my backups as images instead..

I will see if I can duplicate your problem..
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Anonymous

2020-11-24T02:22:13+00:00

Don't know about your specific reference.

I have seen in the recent 3-4 years that UEFI seems to have become the default and to use Legacy systems for booting, we have to change that setting in the boot menu, which I did on both my P51 and this new P52.

But IBM, then Lenovo laptops with Windows have included booting USB for years...and the Internet is loaded with various posts related to "Inaccessible Boot Device" errors...naming Windows updates as one of the culprits very often. Was just hoping to see if anyone here might actually know a specific Windows update # I could look for that is known to cause that...
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Anonymous

2020-11-24T00:51:18+00:00
Sorry if I wasn't clear...

I've used nothing but IBM then Lenovo Thinkpads & Windows software for a good quarter of a century and they all boot up from the substitute boot source of a USB hard drive.

I routinely cloned a Thinkpad C-drive to a backup USB connected hard drive, on a weekly basis for emergency backup purposes, which I could then use 2 ways:
1. I could (and have) physically swap / install the backup hard drive inside the laptop to replace the C-drive if it became defective...and/or;
2. I could (and have many times) interrupt my start-up over to the Boot Menu, select USB drive as the substitute boot source, and boot from the USB clone drive same as if it was the C-drive.
Have done that for years with multiple Thinkpads, all Windows software.

The current situation is that while getting everything set up for a new P52 Thinkpad I discovered it would not BOOT FROM a USB drive, yet interacted properly with the USB drive in every manner of reading / writing with it.

In going back to the P51, to compare various things, I discovered it would NO LONGER boot FROM a USB drive either.

It struck me that the common denominator between two Thinkpads failing identically, with identical sets of Windows software & updates installed...was probably the Windows software.

It had been months since I'd last needed to actually USB boot the P51, so I assume some software update / change had occurred unknown to me that effected the USB BOOT capability of the P51.

Internet searches have many, many posting about various Windows updates causing the problem and I posted here in hopes someone might have had the experience and could call out a particular Windows update that they knew caused it.

Hope its a little more clear...thanks
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