Need to change boot drive after SSD installation and cloning? Acer Aspire TC-780-ACKI3

Hi,

I've recently installed:

Crucial MX500 500GB SATA M.2 2280SS SSD

Into my:

Acer Aspire TC-780-ACKI3

I used the Acronis True Image for Crucial software to Clone Disk from my HDD to the new SSD and I want to set the SSD as my new boot drive. However, while this process was painless and almost completely hands-off for my:

Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM

with a similar SSD, I can't find the way to switch which disk drive is booted from in the BIOS settings (Del at startup) or the Boot Menu (F12 at startup). All I get are the options to boot from:

Windows Boot Manager
CD/Optical Drive
USB Drive
Disabled

Can anyone explain what I need to do? Thanks ahead of time!

Thread was edited to add model name to the title

Accepted answers

All comments

Larryodie

Possibly try Function F12 (Fn F12).

amazingmrpants

I did try F12 already (please see original post), and my desktop (see original post) is not a laptop-type so it doesn't have a "Function" key.

Larryodie

Between the Ctrl Key and Windows Key. [FN]

amazingmrpants

Again, it's not a laptop, so there is no Function key. Since it's a desktop, there is only a contextual menu/right-mouse-click key.

Larryodie

Is this not your keyboard ?

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/f2/bqjw6uppp65k.jpg

Larryodie

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Desktop-i3-7100-Windows-TC-780-ACKi3/dp/B071DM6TWM/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=Acer+Aspire+TC-780-ACKI3&qid=1617153582&sr=8-3

amazingmrpants

No, it's not. The stock keyboard was broken during shipping and I replaced it. The keyboard I have doesn't have the Function key.

Sorry about the misunderstanding, thank you for being patient.

Larryodie

Oops. I don't know except to get or borrow a keyboard thatn has the Fn key or possibly change bios ? Search on fn f12 above, maybe an answer. Good Luck.

ttttt

@amazingmrpants
Maybe there are some keyboards that do not have function keys, but I have yet to see one desktop keyboard in the recent decade that has no function keys. Even my $1 generic keyboard has the F12 key that enables the Boot Menu.

Anyway, once you cloned the disk to the SSD, have you removed the original hard disk temporary? This way you will definitely boot to the new SSD. Then you format the original hard disk as a data disk later.

Don't forget to the hit F9 ( save optimized default) and then F10 (save the changes and exit) in BIOS before your first SSD boot.

billsey

No need to go down a Fn key rathole...

Just disconnect the old drive long enough to boot from the new one. Once you are booted on the new drive it'll use that by default and you can reconnect the old one, then remove all partitions in Disk Management and create a new data partition on it. If it doesn't boot with the old drive disconnected, then the cloning didn't go right and you'll need to do it over. The cloning process should create the correct partitions on the new drive, likely an EFI partition around 100MB in size, the C: system partition, a recovery boot partition around 500MB in size and a recovery image partition that's somewhere between 1-10GB in size. The ones on the new drive should all be the same size as the ones on the old drive, except for C: which is resized to match the new drive size.

amazingmrpants

Well, I'll try this and let you know how it goes. For the moment, I haven't been able to get the cloning to resume after the Acronis software asks me to restart. I end up back in a normal boot cycle, leading to Win 10, as if nothing happened. I've heard/read from other sources that this may be due to Secure Boot settings. I'll try to disable the Secure Boot and try the cloning again.

ttttt

@amazingmrpants

The reason that you are in such a boot cycle is because you have not removed the old HDD. Win 10 just remembered that was your last good boot and keep doing it, unless you changed the boot order in the BIOS to the new drive having higher priority.

Just disconnect the old HDD and then you will be fine.

billsey

Yup, what he said. ^^^^^

amazingmrpants

So I started a fresh cloning procedure; chose the HDD as Source, SDD as Destination. Procedure finished, prompted me to restart after disconnecting the HDD.

I turned PC off, disconnected HDD, and powered on. Didn't work, gave me a Windows blue screen (with an error code) claiming I had removed something important and to retry, access UEFI firmware settings, or something else. Trying the first and 3rd options led back to the same screen; the second option took me to UEFI/BIOS. Exiting BIOS led me back to the Windows blue screen.

Appreciate the help so far and any more incoming.

amazingmrpants

Oh, and I had disabled the Secure Boot before trying the stuff in the previous comment I just made.

ttttt

@amazingmrpants

In case cloning software method failed, I generally recommend people to use Win 10 "restore from system image" method, but that will require an extra HDD but highly reliable. Do you have an external drive or another old SATA HDD with the NTFS format?

If so, go to Control Panel->System and Security->Backup and Restore(Windows 7), choose "Create a system image" from left column.

The extra drive will be the destination of your backup. Depending on how much data to be stored and the speed of this extra HDD, this method may take an hour, so be patience! After that , create a system repair disc too (This maybe needed if the PC doesn't have the ALT+F10 feature while bootup).

Take out the original HDD with the Window 10 on it, connect this extra HDD with system image and with the SSD clean in NTFS format connected to the PC.

Bootup the PC and hold down the ALT key and keep hitting F10 a few times a second until you see a recovery screen. Go to "Advance" section and select Restore from image. If you still have keyboard problems, then use the System restore disc : when bootup keep hitting the "Del" key, this will bring you to the BIOS. Go to the Boot tab, move down and set DVD drive as the highest priority boot device, then save and exit, boot to this repair disc. Search for Restore from image option. Then restore from image to the SSD.

This link is for Dual boot but should help a little:
https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/962809#Comment_962809

Don't forget to save "optimized default " before your first SSD boot.

billsey

You need to rerun the clone. Likely you accidentally selected an option to resize the partitions to handle different source and destination drive sizes. The only partition you can resize during a clone is the system partition (C:). Which cloning software did you use?

amazingmrpants

@billsey

Under Disk Management:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/8j/zgbeo4e5maaj.jpg

Disk 0 is the new SSD; Disk 1 is the old HDD
You can see that the only partition which is changed in size is the C: partition.

I used Acronis True Image for Crucial (as instructed to by the pamphlet in the SSD packaging).

So Disk Management can see the drive, but Windows doesn't; also, in the BIOS/UEFI Integrated Peripheral settings the SSD is seen on SATA slot 0, but the only option for Booting from a drive (not Optical Disk, LAN, or USB) is "Windows Boot Manager". If I use the Boot Menu instead of BIOS (F12 at startup instead of Del at startup), the only option is "Windows Boot Manager".