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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.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Hi,
When you right click on the drive and select Properties... Volumes... Does it show MBR or GPT ?
Does the cloning still work properly on the P51 when making a new clone now ?
I know the clone of the P52 had issues, but was wondering what is going on with the P51's status..
PS: Reference wording of Reformatted
I just realized I shouldn’t have used the word ‘reformatted’…what I really was referring to was “deleting old existing partitions” off of a previously used hard drive in preparation for it to be used for a new Acronis clone copy.
3 screenshots below show the evolution of preparation activity from:
CONTROL PANEL / ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS / COMPUTER MGT / STORAGE / DISK MGT
The bottom drive is being prepped / assigned (E) to become a fresh USB connected spare drive for the next Acronis clone...noticed that all 3 drives have matching characteristics / format.
One thing I noticed in the last of your screen captures.. There is a Red X on the Windows partition and a note that "The Selected Disk Will Be Restored As-Is... (Disk's Layout Will Remain MBR)"...
Oh no, the red x in the screenshot (below) is just calling attention to the fact that a tiny amount of space was taken from the large main "F" partition, and used to set up a tiny separate partition immediately to the left of that main
‘F’ partition…so that technically speaking, the finished Acronis clone of the “F” partition won’t be precisely the same amount of GB’s as the source drive...it'll be 1.1GB less
Hi,
I just tried this on a 12 year old machine running Windows 7... same problem..
So this has nothing to do with something new going on in Windows 10...
Does your P51 still Clone and boot properly ?
One thing I noticed in the last of your screen captures.. There is a Red X on the Windows partition and a note that "The Selected Disk Will Be Restored As-Is... (Disk's Layout Will Remain MBR)"...
I have never seen that happen except when working with flash drives..
When you last reformatted your USB SSD, did you by chance switch it to "GUID (GPT)" ?
Yes, I had already disabled Secure Boot when I switched from UEFI default to Legacy.
I'll give the "Fast Boot" a try just to check it off the list, but it was always set like that on the previous Thinkpads and never had this problem.
PS:
I appreciate your positive helpful attitude in trying to help nail this down...thanks
FYI, just tried it with "Fast Boot" switched with the "Diagnostics" alternative, but it still failed.
( then restored the setting back to Fast Boot )
