Computer Failing to Boot From SSD After Cloning Windows

calioranged

Aspire XC-855 - 8GB, 1TB
Samsung 970 Evo 

I have cloned the HDD partitions to the SSD via Macrium Reflect as can be seen from the last two pictures below. But when I press DEL at start up and access the BIOS and tab over to 'Boot Options' (second image) the SSD doesn't seem to appear when I select '1st Boot Device'. 

But then if I press F12 from start up it pulls up the 'Please select boot device:' menu (third image), my SSD does in fact appear. If I then select the SSD and attempt to boot off of that, the user Acer loading screen starts but then I am redirected to a blue screen that just says 'your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart... we'll restart for you' (top image)

Any suggestions on what to do are more than welcome as I am totally stuck here, this is the first time I have attempted to install an SSD and I'm totally confused.

Please see pictures below for better insight:

brummyfan2

Hi,
Cloning a large drive to a smaller drive always problematic in my experience, so I would suggest creating a bootable recovery USB disk, backup the image to an external drive, then install the 970 and recover the image on to it, if you want to use Macrium reflect.
I'm sure you know the drill, if not please ask.
OR
Use Minitool partition Wizard to migrate the larger drive to smaller drive, download and install MiniTool Partition wizard, install the M.2 SSD, run MiniTool Partition wizard and use Migrate feature.
https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
https://www.partitionwizard.com/help/migrate-os-to-ssd-hd.html

billsey

It looks like the auto resizing didn't do a good job due to the Data partition. It ended up resizing C down to a minimum in order to make D large enough. Better to not build the D at all and use the old drive for D data.

I'd start by copying all the stuff on D to a folder on C, then remove the D partition and expand C to fill the rest of the disk. Redo the cloning process and it should have no trouble with the new C resize. Once you're up and running with the SSD delete the partitions on the old drive and repartition it as a single D partition, then move the contents of the data folder on C to the new big D.

WillingComputers

I know this is an old thread but I wanted to leave an answer that worked for me after many months of trying to overcome this issue.
You will need to do a clean install of windows to any SSD drive, simply cloning the HDD will not work.
1. You will need to install windows from a USB Flash drive formatted in FAT or FAT32 for the system to read the Flash drive, you will also have to set the USB boot options to Legacy.
2. In the BIOS you will have to set SATA control to IDE and Legacy, I know this is counter productive but it is the only thing that works, don't worry it still boots quicker than the HDD.
3. With the Flash drive plugged in set your first boot drive to USB drive and second to SSD.
4. Now save and exit settings in BIOS and let the system do it's thing until the first restart, you now have to remove the Flash drive while the computer is counting down to that first restart.
The computer should now boot to the SSD and finish the install. Do not change the SATA to UEFI or RAID as this will cause the system not to boot to SSD. You can change the Boot priority to the SSD in BIOS once the install is complete.
I hope this helps someone overcome the headache others have encountered with this issue as I was unable to find the correct procedure anywhere on any forums.