2 identical failures, 2 disks dead.
I tried to clone my WD HDD to a previously used SANDisk SSD after clearing it to a single partition. I used the automatic settings in Acronis True Image for WD. The process froze part way through, i.e. stopped with the clock no longer counting down and no sign of disk activity. I used the “Cancel” button and the program exited except it seemed that perhaps it didn’t as I was notified that it was in the way and had to force a system restart. The SSD was now useless, although disk manager could see it existed it refused to initlaise it (“A device which does not exist was specified”) and it is the same “dead” disk wherever I plug it in, different computer, USB attached or SATA attached.
Then I repeated the whole process using an old WD HDD as a trial; I did not want to damage a new SSD. I got an identical failure and a second dead disk.
I found one article from some years back that suggested to do the process in a different system so that it was not the operating disk being cloned. I don’t really have that option.
Are my disks really dead and is this the official WD process for using their SANDisks cos it doesn’t work for me.
Hi @Geordie71,
Please share a model number of both HDD and SSD with a screenshot of the error message so we can assist in the best possible way.
Else please contact the WD Technical Support team for best assistance and troubleshooting:
https://support-en.wd.com/app/ask
Hi,
Source disk was a WD10EARS s/n WCAV5N811036 which had a successful run of DskChk before starting.
Destination Disk was SANDisk SDSSDHII-480G s/n 53647403645
System is running Win10Home and clone was being done from operating windows using the source disk.
No error messages. It simply froze for over 20 minutes, displaying progress at “856912 of 859392 99%”. The progression dots were moving, and I could tick and untick the “Shut down on completion” option so the program’s windows interface was alive. I could press the cancel button and the window closed. However a system shut down was blocked by the presence of the app still running.
Second attempt was to a different destination disk TOSHIBA DT01ACA050 s/n 44HS6LTBS x13 and the result was totally identical even to the level of the 856912 progress count
My serious best guess is that it was waiting for a disk action that never came. I think your recommendation that the tool can be used to clone a live system disk should be changed.
I have since successfully cloned the source disk using different software and NOT having it running as the OS disk. I have not recovered either of the two destination disks which will appear in disk manager but cannot be initialised and show 0K size. It feels like the MBR is locked in some way.
