Trouble with Cloning

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TechNewbie101

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As of right now, I'm trying to replace/clone my old hard drive with my new hard drive. I've been following this guide: https://www.howtogeek.com/199068/how-to-upgrade-your-existing-hard-drive-in-under-an-hour/

Cloning software used: Macrium Reflect, just like in the guide

Everything seemed to be going well up until it reached the halfway point in the cloning process. My monitor just lost signal and my peripherals (keyboard and mouse) lost power, and after a few minutes of waiting, nothing happened, so I decided to turn off my PC and turn it back on. At first I thought I was basically screwed and since I had the free time, I just decided to do the cloning process again from the beginning of the guide, however now there seems to be a file or something that says "System Reserved." So, once I got to the end of the cloning process with Macrium Reflect, unlike before, now this message popped up: https://gyazo.com/ca2189053c7f76f22424d6f82b9e4dfc

Thus bringing me back to the guide, where I followed the "Deploying the Recovery Media" section and went into my BIOS and set it to boot from my Sandisk USB drive, which is where I stored the rescue media. However once I saved and exited from BIOS, my PC restarted and for some reason my monitor once again had "No Signal," and nothing happened after that, so I just turned off my PC.

So my question is, what do I do from here? I tried just opening up Macrium Reflect (once I reset my old hard drive to first priority boot) but there was no "Fix Windows Boot Problems" in the restore tab.

Also just a heads up, this is my first time doing this, so I'm not an expert or anything, so hopefully you can explain in simplest terms. Much help is appreciated, thanks in advanced!
 
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ArtPog

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1. Setting aside the failure of the disk-cloning operation, the fact that during the d-c operation your "monitor just lost signal" and your keyboard/mouse "lost power" (whatever that means!) are rather strange events, to say the least.

2. So, starting from the beginning with info that you should have provided...
A. What is the system you're working with? A desktop PC? A OEM laptop? What?
B. Do you know the make/model of your motherboard?
C. Presumably the "old hard drive" containing your OS (which is?) performed without problems? It booted to the OS without incident and your system performed without problems?
D. Or were you having problems with your PC?
E. Aside from the "old hard drive", any other secondary drives installed in the PC?
F. What was (is) the make/model of the drive that will be the recipient of the clone?

3. The following criteria should be met in order to carry out a satisfactory d-c operation...
A. The current boot (source) drive functions without any problems.
B. The proposed destination disk is non-defective.
C. You would be satisfied with your destination disk essentially containing a bit-for-bit copy of your source drive.
D. The disk-space capacity of the destination drive is sufficiently large enough to contain the total data contents of the source disk.

If you want to go on with this here, answer all the above and provide any other pertinent details re your system & objective(s).
 
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TechNewbie101

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Apologies for the lack of information!
1.
I don't know if "lose power" is the right term I should have used but generally on bootup, normally once it reaches the Windows 7 screen with the logo popping up, the RGB in my peripherals goes out momentarily then comes back on. However when I started trying to replace the old hard drive is when this problem started occurring, where my PC boots up, passes the point where you're able to get into the BIOS then my monitor just shows "No Signal" and the RGB in my peripherals goes out, however I can still hear my PC running even though everything is black/turned off.

2.
A) I'm dealing with a desktop PC.
B) The motherboard is a FM2A55M-VG3+
C) My old hard drive is a basic WD 500GB HDD with windows 7 OS installed, and yes, it was working perfectly fine prior to me attempting to replace my old hard drive.
D) No problems at all.
E) The only other drive I have aside from my old hard drive is the optical drive, which I used to install Windows 7 when I first got the PC (pre-built by Ironside).
F) My recipient drive is a 2TB Seagate Firecudda SSHD ST2000DX002: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178996

3.
A) Everything works perfectly fine, like when I only have my old HDD and optical drive plugged in, it boots up perfectly fine. When I have my old HDD and new SSHD plugged in, they boot up perfectly fine (I'm leaving out my optical drive because there are only 2 SATA cables connected to my motherboard, so I take out the power and SATA cables from the optical drive and plug them into the new SSHD).
B) I don't really know if the SSHD is non-defective, but it shows up in my device manager and I'm able to access it in My Computer<Right Click<Manage where I allocated all 2 TB or at least 1.82 TB cause that's all that shows up, so now it shows up as my D: drive where my old HDD is my C: drive.
C and D) Yes I would be satisfied with my new hard drive containing every bit of info from my old hard drive, since I'm planning on swapping out the old hard drive for the new one once it gets cloned. Also yes, my old hard drive has a capacity of 500 GB but only about 350 GB is used, while the new hard drive has 2 TB of space which is plenty more than the old.

Also UPDATE on my situation, somehow I managed to do a complete 360, where I redid the process, deleted the volume on my new hard drive, and essentially redid the cloning process using Macrium Reflect. However, once again, at around 33% of the cloning process, my monitor and peripherals just seem to lose power, but I can clearly hear my PC is still running. This time though, I'm able to boot into my USB where I have the recovery media, but I don't know what to do from there, since I don't even understand what my problem is because the cloning didn't finish, so the steps provided in the HowToGeek guide don't pertain to me.

Also one last thing, I've read up on people with problems when they tried cloning their old hard drive to a new hard drive, where you, Artpog, actually recommended using another cloning software program, Casper, so should I just use that instead of Macrium?


 
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ArtPog

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The information re your system that you provided is very helpful.

The Macrium Reflect program is considered to be a reliable disk-cloning program and as you probably know it's used by many users.

It's difficult to understand why you ran into the problems using that software, especially given the type of problems that arose.

As you're aware I use the Casper d-c program for virtually every d-c operation we undertake. Our primary use for the program is as a vehicle for creating comprehensive backups of our systems, so we use it quite frequently because of its speed and general effectiveness.

However, it is (as you probably know) a commercial program costing $49.99 so most potential users are loathe to pay for a type of program, e.g., Macrium, which is freely available.

Anyway...there's a Trial Edition of Casper available and perhaps it's worth a try. Here's a step-by-step outline if you care to give it a try.

1. Download/install the Casper Trial Edition 10 (v10.0.6044) disk-cloning program from: https://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/trial/

2. Before undertaking the disk-cloning operation close all open programs. (Generally you need not disable your anti-virus program). I'm assuming your Seagate SSHD destination drive - the proposed recipient of the clone - will be internally connected in the system.

3. The opening screen of the program will highlight "Create a Bootable Backup". Click on "Add drive" and a listing of the appropriate destination drive(s) will appear, e.g., your 480 GB SSD.

4. Click on the destination drive's listing and then the "Back up now" button.

5. Casper will run in the background and alert you when the disk-cloning operation is completed. (You can view the actual progress chart by clicking on the Casper icon in the Notification Area on the Taskbar.)

6. Following the (hopefully!) successful disk-cloning operation disconnect your WD 500 GB source drive from the system and boot solely to the connected destination drive. As a general proposition it's a good idea (whenever practicable) for the newly-cloned drive to be connected to the motherboard's first SATA data connector, usually designated SATA 0 or SATA 1.
Also, check the system's BIOS/UEFI to ensure the cloned drive is now first in boot priority order.

7. Assuming the d-c operation is successful in that the SSHD boots & functions without any problems, work with it for a while before reinstalling the old HDD.

8. Casper will utilize the entire disk-space of the destination drive to contain the data contents from the source drive.

(BTW, I'm aware the Seagate Firecuda contains onboard flash memory. I can't imagine that should be any kind of a problem re that drive serving as a destination drive in a d-c operation but I wonder if somehow that was (is?) a problem re this d-c exercise. Strangely enough I'm hard-pressed to think of any d-c operation I've undertaken where a SSHD was employed as a destination disk so it was just an idle thought that occurred to me.)

 
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TechNewbie101

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*Sigh*
Unfortunately, the same thing literally just happened. I downloaded Casper and went through with the cloning/"Back Up Now," and about 30 minutes in, my monitor goes black and the RGB in my mouse and keyboard go off, however my PC is still running, and i know this because I can hear the stock CPU fan still running. I'm not going to turn off my PC just yet, because I want to see if anything happens and hopefully some miracle happens where the monitor comes back on. I just don't understand why this happening!?!?!?!?

Any suggestions on what to do next or another alternative way of replacing my old hard drive with my new one?
 
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ArtPog

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Wish I had the answer but really don't know. Obviously you can undertake the usual "housekeeping" chores re the system...run sfc /scannow, disk cleanup, HDD & memory diagnostic, check for malware...the usual suspects.

Conceivably a defective motherboard. Could even be a failing or defective graphics card or PSU. If you haven't already tried this, fresh-install the OS onto the Seagate (or another drive if you have one available) and see what happens.
 
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TechNewbie101

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Yeah I was thinking that was my last option, but would I need the serial code that came with the Windows 7 key, because I have no clue where that is, however I still have the CD. Also, the only things I really want from my old hard drive are all the steam games that I have, and the software for my AMD Athlon x4 750K and Rx460 GPU, but I'm guessing all that can be downloaded online right?

Oh, thought I should mention this too, I do have a 1TB WD external hard drive, so I'm guessing copying the files from my C: drive that I want and putting them on my external hard drive and then transferring those to the Seagate drive with windows 7 freshly installed, would be just fine right?
 
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ArtPog

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While you could move/copy data (personal documents, audio/visual files, and the like) from your boot drive to the Seagate that has been fresh-installed with the Win 7 OS, you would need to install most, if not all, of your transferred programs onto the new Seagate boot drive. (I believe the Steam games have a special process where reinstallation of the games would not be necessary, but since I'm not a gamer I'm unfamiliar with that process.)


Of course you would still have a problem activating the new Win 7 OS, wouldn't you?
 
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TechNewbie101

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I would have a problem if I needed to enter in the serial product key for Windows 7, because I don't think you can download Windows 7 again, or am i wrong?
 
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TechNewbie101

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My power plan for my PC is on High Performance. Do you think that's the cause of my monitor and peripherals just losing power?
 
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ko888

ko888

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Even in the High Performance plan the display can be set to turn off after a certain period of inactivity.

Have you checked the Windows event logs? It may give you an indication of whether the application or OS may have encountered an unrecoverable problem.
 
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TechNewbie101

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- I had that problem in the past, however in my power settings I changed when the display turns off to, Never, so I'd hope that isn't the issue.
- Also, I just checked the Windows event logs, but I have no clue what any of this information means. I checked around the time that the display and my peripherals "shut down" right when I was going through the Casper file copy, but the only thing i saw was, https://gyazo.com/877243c65188c2de28103c8a3a883f6d. However around the time that I was performing the file copy yesterday, I got these messages, but I have no idea what it means. https://gyazo.com/c2fe096dac777f3341c912d4bf0d7088

I have a question though, what if I were to go through the process of making a system recovery image, is it possible to make my seagate hard drive the primary drive, or does i strictly have to copy all the files over from my old hard drive to the new one. For the system recovery image process, I'm referring to https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/how-to-transfer-windows-7-to-a-new-hard-drive/d36881a5-1a9d-41ce-aa5f-419a50cd8d83
 
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ko888

ko888

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What are the details for these errors?

Windows_Event_Viewer.png


Check here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/7b52f7c1-a783-409e-9af3-da64567676df/vss-error-8193?forum=winserverfiles
 
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TechNewbie101

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Yeah I followed the solution, opened up all the subsequent folders after \Profilelist, but nothing with a ".bak" value.
 
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TechNewbie101

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Honestly, thanks for the help ArtPog and ko888, but I may just hold off on copying the files, and just save the hard drive for a future PC upgrade/build, since my current PC is a pre-built by Ironside with a mini-ITX inside.
 
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