# Can't boot from new SSD on USB 3.0



## lbeck37 (Dec 11, 2016)

I purchased a Dell Inspiron 3050 Mini Desktop PC with Win10 installed on a 32GB M.2 SSD. I purchased a 275GB Crucial SSD in 2.5" HDD form factor which I was going to install in the HDD bay inside the PC but the cable to do that was not available so I put the 275GB SSD inside a case with a SATA to USB 3.0 converter and plugged it into the USB 3.0 port on the PC.


I ran the cloning software (Acronis True Image HD) provided by Crucial but when I restarted the PC it stopped in the boot process and said there was a problem and it was going to fix it but it didn’t reboot until I unplugged the new SSD from the USB port. When it rebooted I was able to plug the SSD back in and it showed up in File Explorer. I was able to restart the PC with the SSD plugged in but it always boots from the original 32GB SSD.


Because the Acronis software had not worked and had felt like a very old design, I installed the MiniTool Partition Wizard and discovered that Acronis had only made the Windows partition the same size as on the original 32GB drive! I then used the MiniTool Migrate OS to SSD/HD Wizard to properly size the partitions and reclone the 275GB SSD, however the PC behaved like it did after the Acronis cloning and wouldn't boot until the new drive was unplugged.


I have been able to use EasyUEFI to set the boot partition to the 1st partition on the new drive but once again it hangs at boot until the drive is unplugged.

When I bring up Disk Manager in Windows it shows the 32GB SSD and the 275GB SSD with identical layouts (except for the much larger Windows partition) with the only real difference in how it reports the two Windows partitions. On the 32GB it reports the C: partition is “Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Wim Boot Primary Partition)”. On the 275GB Disk Manager reports C: partition is “Healthy (Wim Boot Primary Partition)’ without Boot, Page File or Crash Dump. Is this where my problem is? Is my new E: partition not set up as some sort of system partition? The MiniTool Partition Wizard reports the status of the C: partition on the 32GB as “System” and the E; partition on the 275GB as “None”.

Is there something I need to do to the two Windows partitions so the PC will boot from the new disk and not the old?


Thank you, Larry Beck


Here’s my Dell Inspiron 3050 Micro Desktop’s info:


Tech Support Guy System Info Utility version 1.0.0.4

OS Version: Microsoft Windows 10 Home, 64 bit

Processor: Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J1800 @ 2.41GHz, Intel64 Family 6 Model 55 Stepping 8

Processor Count: 2

RAM: 8074 Mb

Graphics Card: Intel(R) HD Graphics, -1984 Mb

Hard Drives: C: 28 GB (2 GB Free); E: 255 GB (233 GB Free);

Motherboard: Dell Inc., 0GN4PW

Antivirus: Windows Defender, Enabled and Updated


BTW- I thought I was running AVG Free antivirus!


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## Triple6 (Dec 26, 2002)

Yes, you need to install it internally, you cannot boot Windows from a USB connected drive.


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## lbeck37 (Dec 11, 2016)

Thanks for the quick reply. My problem has progressed further since I posted yesterday. In the process of trying to get it to recognize the system I inadvertently made some change to the boot info that causes booting to fail with a message about doing some sort of recovery. Would I do this recovery from a USB thumb drive or a DVD in an external USB DVD reader? Also, I thought a Windows OS could be booted off a USB drive, was that only in pre-UEFI?


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

lbeck37 said:


> Also, I thought a Windows OS could be booted off a USB drive, was that only in pre-UEFI?


Pretty sure that was never possible. You can boot to a USB flash drive or optical drive if it contains an installation disk or a Linux OS, but not a Windows OS. Same for BIOS and UEFI.


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## lbeck37 (Dec 11, 2016)

Do you know how I would build a USB flash drive to get my boot stuff back in order to boot from the Windows system on my internal 32GB SSD? I didn't understand the part about BIOS and UEFI, where are these located? I thought they were in flash on the mother board but never really thought about it.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

lbeck37 said:


> Do you know how I would build a USB flash drive to get my boot stuff back in order to boot from the Windows system on my internal 32GB SSD?


You will probably get better answers to that than I can give. My only attempt to install (a Linux distribution) on a UEFI system resulted in a complete mess. I stumbled around for a few days before finally installing (Windows 8) "fresh." And I don't remember the exact symptoms of the problems nor what actually got me going again. If you need Windows 10 installation media I think that you can get the .iso from this Microsoft site. During the installation the Product Key will be obtained from a chip embedded in the motherboard.



lbeck37 said:


> I thought they were in flash on the mother board but never really thought about it.


Yes, the older BIOS and the newer UEFI are firmware "flashed" to the motherboard. They, as I'm sure you already know, provide the user interface that allows us to see and change certain options in the hardware (such as boot order).


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## crjdriver (Jan 2, 2001)

Why not just do a system restore using the restore or recovery partition? This will put everything back to the way it was prior to you messing with it. Since you were messing with the bios/uefi, you will also need to load defaults prior to doing the recovery.

During POST, hit the ctrl>F11 key combo [I think that is the correct combo however read your manual] This will recover the system to the same state as when it was new.


> Because the Acronis software had not worked and had felt like a very old design


Acronis works VERY well however you cannot ask it to do something that is not possible [boot windows from a usb] No windows operating system will ever boot from a usb drive; not going to happen. You can however boot linux from a usb drive [or optical drive for that matter]
FWIW when you boot with the acronis boot usb or cd, you are actually running a version of linux.


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## lbeck37 (Dec 11, 2016)

It's been awhile since I got my problem solved and I wanted to give a big thanks to the people who responded here and got me on track. Not knowing that Windows can't boot from a USB drive was what got me in this mess and once I stopped thinking I could do that and then focused on getting my machine to boot was my successful path. I was able to get a Windows image on a USB thumb drive that quickly got me booting again off my internal 32GB SSD. Thanks again


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

You're welcome. 

But I don't understand what you did. What's this "Windows image"? I make a backup image of my system periodically, but I doubt that you mean this kind of image.


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## storage_man (Nov 6, 2003)

TerryNet said:


> You're welcome.
> 
> But I don't understand what you did. What's this "Windows image"? I make a backup image of my system periodically, but I doubt that you mean this kind of image.


What the OP did was download and build a W10 USB system, that can be booted from and then used to install or repair his windows system that is on the SSD in his system. He repaired it.


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## lbeck37 (Dec 11, 2016)

I do believe that's what I did. What's an OP?
Thanks


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## Ronc303 (Nov 17, 2016)

lbeck37 said:


> I do believe that's what I did. What's an OP?
> Thanks


OP = Original Poster (you)


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## lbeck37 (Dec 11, 2016)

Thanks


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