Help needed resolving boot when moving HD to SSD

[alternety]

I have spent a bunch of time with the documentation; but I am just not getting  what I think I need.

 

SItuation: Attempting to move "C drive" to an SSD on Win 8.1. I have built the SSD from a Reflect "clone".

 

Things were working reasonably well. Various partition viewing software displayed somewhat different partition on the drives. I finally thought I was finished, but next boot said run repair. The SSD( from which I had successfully booted) no longer was bootable. I have used multiple packages to look at mounted drives. Information differs between the various applications. Generally, I appear to have two drives (Hard and SSD) that look alike.

 

I have been booting  from one or the other. I can no longer boot from the SSD. When I run EasyBCD  "view settings" it shows a list of 5 boot entries. It appears each time I booted from the other drive (disk/ssd) a new entry was made. I am not sure I understand the list. But I am guessing it represents the drive currently considered the boot drive (not the SSD). I have found no way to look at the other mounted drives and get this information. So I see no way to change the status of things to get the SSD to boot.

 

It would appear I can remove most of the entires for the boot drive. Although I am a bit uncertain on which ones are OK. But no way to set a different drive to be the boot drive. Nor have I found a way to set the SSD to active after booting from the HD. Windows does not seem to allow me to change that.

 

Can anyone explain how to:

 

Boot with the current bootable HD

Change boot drive to SSD, and reboot

Select extraneous boot entries on the current boot drive and any others for deletion.

[sikhwarrior]

When you begin booting, you can choose which media device you wish to boot from esc or F2 or F12 in most cases. Here you will be able to select the HDD, what make and model is your SSD? 

[+BudMan MVC]

What is your ultimate goal?

I just did this for my cousin, got a new laptop 8.1 - I put a ssd in it for him. It took all of couple of minutes. I connected the new ssd via usb dock I have - ran the migration software from samsung. http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/about/whitepaper11.html

Took the old hdd out, put in the new ssd - bing bang zoom running on the new ssd.

It really was that simple. Click Click done..

So what is your actual goal, are you wanting to move to ssd, or you trying to be fancy with dual boots and what other partitions are you talking about on these disks - can you show what your current hdd looks like with disk manager?

[+sphbecker MVC]

You need to make sure the SSD partition has been marked Active using DISKPART (you can do this with WinPE).  Once that is done, I would try booting with only that drive connected.  If it still does not work, check your BIOS/EFI settings.  If it works with a single drive but does not work with both drives connected, then use DISKPART to remove the active flag from the original drive and make sure the SSD is listed first in the boot order.

 

If you are getting a blue screen saying "Inaccessible Boot Device," make sure you did not change any settings in the BIOS when you installed the drive, if you did, change them back.

 

If none of that works, then I would trying cloning the drive again, maybe something went wrong with that process.

 

When troubleshooting a boot issue, it is helpful to understand where the boot is failing.

1)  BIOS cannot find a boot device, assuming drive is physically connected and your BIOS settings are correct, that means there is no MBR on the drive or no partition has been marked Active, both can be easily fixed (bootrec and bootsect commands)

2)  Missing NTLDR error, MS boot manager was invoked but cannot find a bootable Windows partition, might be a corrupted Windows install or you may simply need to update the boot records (bcdedit command)

3)  Blue Screen error, Windows started booting, but failed to load a compatible storage driver, or some other problem with the Windows Installation exists.  This is pretty hard to fix, unless you know exactly what changed caused it and can undo that change, reinstalling is your best bet at this point.

[alternety]

When telling the BIOS to boot to the drive I get the "needs repair" It worked for a while. I beleive I caused the problem by booting a number of time with the SSD and the original disk. Disk management will not let me set a partition active when it is not the boot drive.

 

I got a partition tool and looked at the boot partition. There are five entries, spread among several targets. I am going to try to correlate them whith specific drives using the ID charagter string.  Then get rid of the boot entries that are not correct/useful. The tool (Paragon Disk Manager) will allow me to remove these entries. Presumably it is smart enough to not damage the table/list that holds that information. This is what I would like to know - is this a viable approach?

 

Early in the process there were oddities. None of the Samsung softeware worked. Migration failed as soon as I tried to instal it. Magician saw no SSD. Magician now sees the SSD. I have seen many people install these with absolutly no portblem. Not me. But does the SSD work when I had it running. Impressive; like a new machine.

 

Sure - did not think about where the UEFI lives. If the parameters are not stored in the boot system;Duh. Thanks.

[Stokkolm]

What is your ultimate goal?

I just did this for my cousin, got a new laptop 8.1 - I put a ssd in it for him. It took all of couple of minutes. I connected the new ssd via usb dock I have - ran the migration software from samsung. http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/about/whitepaper11.html

Took the old hdd out, put in the new ssd - bing bang zoom running on the new ssd.

It really was that simple. Click Click done..

So what is your actual goal, are you wanting to move to ssd, or you trying to be fancy with dual boots and what other partitions are you talking about on these disks - can you show what your current hdd looks like with disk manager?

Sounds like he's cloning his HDD to his SSD (connected simultaneously) and then trying to boot up with two identical drives attached.

[alternety]

Yes 2 drives. So win won't let me change the boot drive, or mark a new one boot. That is where I am currently.

 

Revised/additional thinking. I still want to get the excess boot targets out of the bootloaders list. Then copy the boot partition from the boot drive to the SSD again. If I am understanding, that should fix it.

[+BudMan MVC]

So OP you want both disks?

Sounds like to me you have already screwed the pooch - I would just start over.. What do you want as your end product??

[whs37]

Can you post a picture of your disk management. Without that we will only be guessing. Make sure the 'Status field' is fully opened so that we can see the complete text. Example:

 

[+Warwagon MVC]

Shouldn't the boot drive be taken care of in the bios under the hard drive priority list? Just put the drive you want to boot from first on the top.

[Stokkolm]

Shouldn't the boot drive be taken care of in the bios under the hard drive priority list? Just put the drive you want to boot from first on the top.

If he cloned the drive then his System Volume, Boot, Page File, etc... are going to be on both drives, on top of that the GUID will be the same, so GPT isn't going to function correctly. This will cause problems once Windows gets going no matter which drive he boots from.

[+BudMan MVC]

It is very frustrating asking such simple questions.  And getting back nothing -- OP what are you trying to do?. Other than that you cloned your existing system.  Do you want to only have your new SSD in the system.  Do you want only the OS on the SSD and data will be on the previous HDD?

 

You can not have duplicate disks from a clone in the same system and expect to boot whichever one you want, etc..  I would assume your trying to migrate from a HDD to a SSD, then leverage the HDD as space?  This is a typical scenario!!  Is this what your trying to accomplish?

 

And as asked multiple times - lets see your disk partition layout via disk manager or gparted, something..  Is the OS that was installed on the original HDD OEM installed with hidden recovery/tools type disk.. Or did you install the OS on the disk from a clean disk? etc..

 

Would love to help - but completely in the dark on what your working with or what your trying to accomplish at the end..  This is about the only thing that is clear

 

"SItuation: Attempting to move "C drive" to an SSD on Win 8.1. I have built the SSD from a Reflect "clone"."

 

But sounds like you had multiple partitions on it?  Why were they just disks, where they other OSes?  Where they hidden tools/recovery, etc..A picture is worth a 1000 words!!!

 

Who is the maker of the SSD??  Why did you not just use their migration software - they all have migration software!

[Mando]

all the time spent researching the issue is a waste of time.

 

Remove your Hdd (disconn data n power) install SSD and do a clean install.

 

then connect old hdd and move data you wanna keep.

 

the time spent trying to figure out the cloning issues etc, you could have done a clean install and update

Shouldn't the boot drive be taken care of in the bios under the hard drive priority list? Just put the drive you want to boot from first on the top.

Kinda matey, when prepping the partitions they need to be marked as Active partitions to be bootable to begin with.

[Showan]

It is very frustrating asking such simple questions.  And getting back nothing -- OP what are you trying to do?. Other than that you cloned your existing system.  Do you want to only have your new SSD in the system.  Do you want only the OS on the SSD and data will be on the previous HDD?

 

You can not have duplicate disks from a clone in the same system and expect to boot whichever one you want, etc..  I would assume your trying to migrate from a HDD to a SSD, then leverage the HDD as space?  This is a typical scenario!!  Is this what your trying to accomplish?

 

And as asked multiple times - lets see your disk partition layout via disk manager or gparted, something..  Is the OS that was installed on the original HDD OEM installed with hidden recovery/tools type disk.. Or did you install the OS on the disk from a clean disk? etc..

 

Would love to help - but completely in the dark on what your working with or what your trying to accomplish at the end..  This is about the only thing that is clear

 

"SItuation: Attempting to move "C drive" to an SSD on Win 8.1. I have built the SSD from a Reflect "clone"."

 

But sounds like you had multiple partitions on it?  Why were they just disks, where they other OSes?  Where they hidden tools/recovery, etc..A picture is worth a 1000 words!!!

 

Who is the maker of the SSD??  Why did you not just use their migration software - they all have migration software!

 

 

At Budman, I have a SSD coming in this week (hopefully before New Years), it's 256GB... 

 

I've always just cloned the drive... is this still the best way to go, or should I install my copy of Windows 8 fresh?  If a straight clone is fine, is there a cloning app that you recommend (I've always used Acronis)

 

Also, do I need to change anything in the Bios so that the SSD is detected or runs better?

 

thanks in advance...

 

Edit: The original drive will be wiped (if cloning process can be done) and used for data

[+BudMan MVC]

And who is the maker of this SSD Showan?  They all have their own FREE migration software with clear instructions.. Not sure why anyone wanting to migrate to SSD would not use the software/instructions the maker of the SSD provides..

 

When I moved to ssd on my PC, I did clean install.  When I moved to ssd on older laptop - clean install. For my own personal systems I would most likely do clean install.  But then again I know what software I want/have/need - and my files are all backed up and not on the physical OS drive anyway, etc.  So doing clean is click click to be honest.

 

If your moving to ssd for someone else system - I would go the clone route, so they get their system back exactly how it was just faster   You don't have to worry about drivers, etc. etc.. But again why use some 3rd party tools when the maker provide them for you?

 

If need be using the makes tools - you call them and they can walk you through, etc.

 

samsung http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/about/whitepaper11.html

crucial

intel https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=19324

pny http://www.pny-download.eu/support/PNY_SSDUpgradeKit_Guide_Demat.pdf

 

Now if your didn't come with cable - then use any usb to disk cable.  I have a usb 3 dock for 2.5 and 3.5 disks that cost me a whole $20 - that really should be in any computer users tool bag.

[alternety]

Thanks for all the atttention to my post. An I appreciate your not knowing what I know. It is a reasonable view.

 

All I am trying to do is move from spinning rust to a Samsung 850 EVO 512 SSD. Everything I had read said piece of cake. The Samsung migration tool has failed (repeatedly) on trying to install it. Hence another piece of software to clone. Their "magician" program now recognizes the SSD when it is in the machine. It would not do so when I tried it on the unmodified SSD initially. Altering the boot selection in the BIOS (UEFI) to the SSD yields a must repair screen.

 

A progres note: I have retried installing the migration tool. It is currently updating because it was not the current version. I will pass on what happens in a later post. I have executed it and there is no aparant result. No screens; no action is observable.

 

For a time I could boot from either HD or SSD. Now I can't. I dont know why. This is with only one boot device powered up on the machine at a time.

 

I do not want to reinstall and reconfigure everything installed on my HD. Various reasons (and for me good ones) make me dismiss this approach.

 

The multiple entries in the boot partition are not duplicates. They are simply ones for different devices. Some may not be applicable - A question I did ask is if individual entries can/should be deleted. My current thinking is they don't really seem to be a problem.

 

Configuration of the system: either 1 or two HDs and the SSD. I have booted from the HD and then attached the SSD to look at things. Aparantly it was properly identified as an active devide for some time, but something I did has inadvertently changed that. I have a second HD that Iattach which was "D" drive in the original conficuration. I do that because I have all the software sources loaded there. Look at them with (the original boot and the SSD) and they look just like two regular old GPT bootable drives. One (HD) active. They each have the same size boot partition, then a 128 MB unallocated space (Disk Management the space shows for the HD but not for the SSD, but Paragon shows them both), then the 465 GB NTFS partition followed by a recovery partition. The remainder of the 1 TB HD is an unallocated space. Everything seems to have cloned properly.

 

I have just gotten back to working on this and will try just having the SSD in the machine and use a tool to set the SSD to active bootable. I am sure I have downloaded Win PE, but could not locate it last night. That is where I am currently headed.

 

Thanks again for the support.

 

Still no evident activity from the Samsung migration tool; except my screen went blank, message that the AMD display driver crashed and recovered. Everything looks normal.

 

Yet another bit of info. Task manager shows two samsung applications running but using no resources except for the memory allocated. Looking at "properties" in TM, they both show the language as Korean. That does not bother Magician, but perhaps that would explain the display failure and no open window.

[Showan]

And who is the maker of this SSD Showan?  They all have their own FREE migration software with clear instructions.. Not sure why anyone wanting to migrate to SSD would not use the software/instructions the maker of the SSD provides..

 

When I moved to ssd on my PC, I did clean install.  When I moved to ssd on older laptop - clean install. For my own personal systems I would most likely do clean install.  But then again I know what software I want/have/need - and my files are all backed up and not on the physical OS drive anyway, etc.  So doing clean is click click to be honest.

 

If your moving to ssd for someone else system - I would go the clone route, so they get their system back exactly how it was just faster   You don't have to worry about drivers, etc. etc.. But again why use some 3rd party tools when the maker provide them for you?

 

If need be using the makes tools - you call them and they can walk you through, etc.

 

samsung http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/about/whitepaper11.html

crucial

intel https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=19324

pny http://www.pny-download.eu/support/PNY_SSDUpgradeKit_Guide_Demat.pdf

 

Now if your didn't come with cable - then use any usb to disk cable.  I have a usb 3 dock for 2.5 and 3.5 disks that cost me a whole $20 - that really should be in any computer users tool bag.

 

 

THe make is OCZ ARC 100

 

Went to OCZ's website... And there is NO specific software for the make and model that I have.

[Showan]

Thought about whaT ya said Budman... And decided to go clean install..

Decided to go for it...

[Showan]

It is very frustrating asking such simple questions.  And getting back nothing -- OP what are you trying to do?. Other than that you cloned your existing system.  Do you want to only have your new SSD in the system.  Do you want only the OS on the SSD and data will be on the previous HDD?

 

You can not have duplicate disks from a clone in the same system and expect to boot whichever one you want, etc..  I would assume your trying to migrate from a HDD to a SSD, then leverage the HDD as space?  This is a typical scenario!!  Is this what your trying to accomplish?

 

And as asked multiple times - lets see your disk partition layout via disk manager or gparted, something..  Is the OS that was installed on the original HDD OEM installed with hidden recovery/tools type disk.. Or did you install the OS on the disk from a clean disk? etc..

 

Would love to help - but completely in the dark on what your working with or what your trying to accomplish at the end..  This is about the only thing that is clear

 

"SItuation: Attempting to move "C drive" to an SSD on Win 8.1. I have built the SSD from a Reflect "clone"."

 

But sounds like you had multiple partitions on it?  Why were they just disks, where they other OSes?  Where they hidden tools/recovery, etc..A picture is worth a 1000 words!!!

 

Who is the maker of the SSD??  Why did you not just use their migration software - they all have migration software!

 

 

Sorry to keep bugging you.  IS there a way to better optimize Windows 8 on a new SSD?

 

I went with a clean install, its faster than a mechanical drive for sure.

 

But it's not yielding the results I was looking for

 

My PC

 

i7920 (original i7 from 2009 or so)

16GB of RAM

OCZ ARC 100 SSD (240GB)

Also: Ran all updates to get back to WIndows 8.1

 

in all the articles I've read it says to put the PC in ACHI mode and it seems to be even slower when I do this.

 

Any recommendations?

 

OT: If you need more system specs please let me know

[+BudMan MVC]

Yes you need to be in ACHI mode - if you did a clean install, this should of been turned on before install.

 

What were the results you are looking for, and what are you getting?  How are you getting these results?   Are you running their software to test it? They call it toolbox I believe http://ocz.com/consumer/download/firmware

[Showan]

Yes you need to be in ACHI mode - if you did a clean install, this should of been turned on before install.

 

What were the results you are looking for, and what are you getting?  How are you getting these results?   Are you running their software to test it? They call it toolbox I believe http://ocz.com/consumer/download/firmware

 

I have the OCZ toolbox installed and run the TRIM and such...  THere isn't much in there other than TRIM... you can get some detailed info.

 

Just doesn't seem as snappy as I thought.

 

Maybe after a few reboots and such

 

Some Data from OCZToolbox

 

SMART Data

 

Model Number: OCZ-ARC100

Serial Number: A22L1061448000278

WWN: 5e83a971000203f8

Config ID: TH58TEG7DDKBA4C_512MB_0x00000000FFFFFFFF_ARC100_BF3

 

 

OCZ Attributes:

ID ATTRIBUTE STATUS VALUE WORST THRESHOLD UPDATED RAW

5 Accumulated Runtime Bad Blocks 0x0000 000 000 000 Offline 0

9 Power-On Hours Count 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 12

12 Power Cycle Count 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 7

171 Available OP Sector Count 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 79199056

174 Power Cycle Count (unplanned) 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 0

195 Total Programming Failures 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 0

196 Total Erase Failures 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 0

197 Total Read Failures (uncorrectable) 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 0

208 Average Erase Count 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 2

210 SATA CRC Error Count 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 0

224 In Warranty 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 1

233 Lifetime Remaining 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 100

241 Host Writes (GB) 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 140

242 Host Reads (GB) 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 71

249 Total NAND Programming Count (pages) 0x0000 100 100 000 Offline 4879586

[+BudMan MVC]

"Just doesn't seem as snappy as I thought."

 

kid: This ice cream isn't very good

clerk: Whats wrong with it

kid: Its not as ice creamy as I thought it would be

 

 

What does it take 5 seconds to boot vs the 4 you were thinking?  Sorry but snappy is not a number can work with   Do a benchmark, I show it here with a ranking of 91, not very good and very inconsistent benchmarks

 

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/OCZ-ARC-100-240GB/Rating/2603

 

If what you were looking for is blow your socks off performance - prob not the best choice of SSDs..

 

That above link has easy exe you can download and do simple benchmark.  So for example here are my 2 drive results.  How does your SSD compare?

 

 

To other users with the same SSD?  Notice how it mentions mine is ram cached - well yeah   I have a UPS, there is no reason not to use ram cache if you have good power or ups.

[Showan]

"Just doesn't seem as snappy as I thought."

 

kid: This ice cream isn't very good

clerk: Whats wrong with it

kid: Its not as ice creamy as I thought it would be

 

 

What does it take 5 seconds to boot vs the 4 you were thinking?  Sorry but snappy is not a number can work with   Do a benchmark, I show it here with a ranking of 91, not very good and very inconsistent benchmarks

 

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/OCZ-ARC-100-240GB/Rating/2603

 

If what you were looking for is blow your socks off performance - prob not the best choice of SSDs..

 

That above link has easy exe you can download and do simple benchmark.  So for example here are my 2 drive results.  How does your SSD compare?

 

benchmarkdrives.png

 

To other users with the same SSD?

 

 

I wish I could say it was below 10seconds to get to a functioning desktop it's more like 30seconds or so..

 

thanks for the link gonna run it now

[Showan]

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/124504

 

Here's my results

 

Edit: Thank you so much for your patience and help...

 

I managed to get reboot down to 4seconds and working desktop to 20seconds.  I shaved some startup services off.

 

I believe the problem is, my other drives get "read' during boot.

 

Is there a way to delay when they spin up? Like non boot drives spin up when WIndows is done loading?

[+BudMan MVC]

Well here something right off the bat that will hinder its performance

 

"The boot partition is located on a SATA 3.0 SSD but it's only operating at SATA 2.0 speeds"

 

If what your looking for is snappy - you might consider updating the MB or see if you can add a sata 3 card?  Also why so many disks, doesn't seem like they are full - they are only usb 2, and sata 2, etc..  Might be time to consolidate and put them in a NAS box if just used for storage..  Get something bigger and faster if you want to connect to your PC, etc.

 

That would be my advice..