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

Anonymous
2020-11-23T22:22:39+00:00

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.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Devices and drivers

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-11-25T20:59:23+00:00

    Yes...so on the one hand, the laptop 'sees / accesses' the USB attached hard drive...executes the Acronis cloning operation with no indication of any troubles...finishes & shuts down normally, etc.

    And when I simply leave it connected to the laptop and boot up normally, I can see the USB drive is recognized and listed as the correct drive, I can look inside and see the copied contents, etc.

    Yet after cloning and attempting to Boot from the very same USB hard drive...it apparently cannot be seen or recognized or something, causing Blue Screen error:  "Inaccessible Boot Device"

    So to my limited knowledge, an actual USB Boot attempt must go through a different path, take different steps than those taken to create the clone in the first place.

    And apparently something is clobbered in that path or steps, that prevents that approach from unfolding and up pops the error message:  "Inaccessible Boot Device".

    And I assume the error message is Windows...which is then followed by Windows automatically working around the situation and continuing on to a normal start up all by itself.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-11-25T19:42:59+00:00

    I think I see where you're going here.

    You seem to be focusing on this part of Acronis' instructions:

    "... your new hard disk will be made bootable."

    It means after you restore the image to the disk, the disk will be bootable. Funny how I see it now, looking at it the way you do.

    The image - a clone in this case - is just a gigantic string of 0's and 1's compressed into an archive. When you un-compress those 0's and 1's and put them on a disk, the disk becomes bootable, because part of what's in those 0's and 1's is the metadata that a disk needs in order to boot.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-11-25T19:20:11+00:00

    LOL...

    I just use the recommended default Automatic Clone Mode.

    Its a simple 4 step process, starting with a USB attached empty hard drive.

    Screen shots of the 4 steps are listed below:

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-11-25T15:21:13+00:00

    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:

    FWIW, I also have this thread on the Lenovo site as well, and so far, have zero replies regarding any issues with Lenovo hardware or Lenovo updates that might cause this problem.

    That's why the further I've gone eliminating Lenovo related issues, it's hard to ignore the various Internet postings that some windows updates do clobber a driver or some setting somewhere that then causes odd problems...in my case on a new P52 and it's otherwise perfect P51 predecessor.

    And along that vein, my windows updates have always included related updates for other Microsoft products I have installed like MS Office and all its applications...and noticed there was a tremendous rash of October / November updates that all hit at the same time in just a couple of big download batches...so a lot of stuff got changed all at once.

    I appreciate your positive helpful attitude in trying to help nail this down...thanks

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-11-25T14:29:00+00:00

    Hi,

    You might check in your Bios to see if disabling Fast Boot and\or Secure Boot might help...

    That would not explain why there are now issues on the P51 as well though..

    The Fast Boot setting all in itself can block booting from USB, but I would think the boot would never even start, not start and then Blue Screen..

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