Finally, I get done with the day, its now late evening, the wife is in bed, the dog is asleep, and the telephone has stopped ringing, so now its my quiet time to do some PC work. Been wanting to clone my laptop HDD to a new SSD, so that's the task for tonight. I've done this job many times, so it shouldn't be much of an issue, or so I thought. That's when Microsoft decided to step in and make it royal pain in the ass.

While readying to clone my new drive, Microsoft pops up on my laptop and says, "Hey you've got updates". In hindsight, should I have turned off my internet connection? Yes I should have.
Well, since everything is running perfectly at the moment, I tell Microsoft to postpone meddling in my computer with its damn updates for three days, and proceed to start cloning my new drive. Everything is progressing great until Acronis exits Windows to perform some basic disk tasks, and the Microsoft deity steps in and decrees that those updates I postponed must be applied to the system now. That's right, in the middle of cloning a drive, Windows begins updating itself onto the drive I'm trying to clone from. Well, not only did that trash my clone job, but to put a cherry on top of this cluster, Windows was unable to finish updating properly (probably due to the cloning job) so the laptop won't boot properly now.

So in the current tally, I have...

1 - An installed drive that's screwed up
2 - A cloned drive that's worthless
3 - A laptop that isn't functioning properly.
4 - A couple hours of work (at least) trying to uninstall all the updates and get the laptop back to square one.

...all thanks to our helpful friends at Microsoft.

I think I'll just give up and go to bed. Maybe the Microsoft gods will smile on me tomorrow, or at a minimum, leave me the hell alone.

My main ripstation's port assignments get scrambled every time there is an update.

It's no simple task to reassign which machine is assigned to which USB.

The only solution is to buy a Mac. ;-D

I would try a system restore to the last point prior to the restore point of the update.

That should put you back to before you cloned, and then you can turn of updates and or disable the update service until after cloning.

System Restore was my first thought as well.

It must be awesome, knowing how to ride a bike without training wheels.

Sorry about your troubles. That sucks.

I uninstalled 'all' recent updates, shut down to essentially restore to pre-update status, and then manually triggered the update process to try and get everything updated properly. After a couple hours this morning, the laptop appears to be fully updated and functional again. I'm going to use it for my PC needs today and tomorrow (instead of my desktop machine) to insure everything is indeed 'right' before I attempt to clone the drive again.

First, every cloned drive I've done has been at the block level aka is done with the OS not running (boot disk has clone software aka Aronis, etc) so I don't see how the pending update would get in the way?

Second, you should always check your update status prior to a major operation > only common sense.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
First, every cloned drive I've done has been at the block level aka is done with the OS not running (boot disk has clone software aka Aronis, etc) ...

This ^^^^^

How can you "clone" a live system? It's constantly touching the live drive(s).

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
First, every cloned drive I've done has been at the block level aka is done with the OS not running (boot disk has clone software aka Acronis, etc) so I don't see how the pending update would get in the way?

My best guess is that when Acronis exited Windows to do its thing, that apparently prompted the pending (and postponed) updates to kick in. Don't know, but that's my guess. Its the first, and hopefully only time, I'll ever experience this.

quote:

Second, you should always check your update status prior to a major operation > only common sense.

Thank you for pointing out the painfully obvious, which I'm still kicking myself for not addressing first.

IMHO a live system should never be cloned, as stated. Run the "rescue" media from bootable flash and clone that way.

In my case, I use GRUB4DOS to boot to a menu from which I can choose a handful of ISOs including several versions of Acronis.

In addition, If I am making any significant changes to a system, I'll image the drive first.

It's easier to manage a few dozen images than it is to try to recover from a mess.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
My best guess is that when Acronis exited Windows to do its thing, that apparently prompted the pending (and postponed) updates to kick in. Don't know, but that's my guess. Its the first, and hopefully only time, I'll ever experience this.

Say it is so > couldn't you just reinstall the original hard drive, let it finish any impending updates then re-run your clone software?

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Say it is so > couldn't you just reinstall the original hard drive, let it finish any impending updates then re-run your clone software?

Here's the situation I found myself in.

• The original HDD was never removed from the laptop.
• I used a USB/SSD adapter cable to attach the new SSD to the laptop.
• Acronis cloning began from HDD to SSD.
• When Acronis left Windows during the cloning process, I wasn't sure if the Windows updates started 'during' or 'post' cloning, so I couldn't for sure rely on the accuracy of the clone.
• When everything was finished, the laptop shut down, as it should on the end of the Acronis process.
• When I rebooted the laptop, it came up to a blue screen, which I bypassed to get into Windows, at which point I was told not all updates were installed correctly.
• Every time I rebooted, I hit that blue recovery screen letting me know things were not bueno.
• I finally opted to uninstall all the current windows updates, shut down and reboot, and then run the update process manually from the Windows Update and Settings utility.
• After a long update process, I rebooted and the laptop returned to normal function.
• I then re-cloned the HDD to the SSD without issue, installed the SSD in the laptop, and everything appears to be working as normal.

I've used Acronis to clone a number of drives in the past, so I wasn't concerned I was treading into new territory. The Windows Update process, its timing, and the huge size of that particular update were the things that threw me a curve. I thought I could clone the drive without dealing with those updates until afterwards, and learned the hard way that isn't the case. Lesson learned. I won't make that mistake again.

You should try sitting in meetings with them while they sell worthless crap to your managers/directors when finalizing an EA agreement.

I hate Microsoft with a passion!!! If I could afford a Mac and all the software I'd have to replace, then I might buy one, but my daughter and I recently looked at that option when buying her a new laptop before she went to college, and the $$$ were simply unaffordable for me and my family!

I am currently looking for my original Win7 Pro install disc so I can put it back on my HP laptop and get rid of this Windows 10 garbage once and for all! The constant updates and taking over my computer when I want / need to use it is infuriating to say the least!

quote:

Originally posted by bronicabill:
I hate Microsoft with a passion!!! If I could afford a Mac and all the software I'd have to replace, then I might buy one, but my daughter and I recently looked at that option when buying her a new laptop before she went to college, and the $$$ were simply unaffordable for me and my family!

I am currently looking for my original Win7 Pro install disc so I can put it back on my HP laptop and get rid of this Windows 10 garbage once and for all! The constant updates and taking over my computer when I want / need to use it is infuriating to say the least!

If you have a retail or system builder Win7 Pro key, just download the ISO at this official Microsoft link. You'll be asked to type in your product key to verify, and then you can install Win7 from a created USB drive.

Once back on Win7 Pro, image the laptop. Then, since you probably need at least one of the Microsoft Assistive Technology Features, legally upgrade to Win 10 Pro at this Microsoft link. 10Pro is better than 7Pro.

quote:

Originally posted by djpaintles:
The only solution is to buy a Mac. ;-D

m/s crap is one of the many reasons I switched to Mac.

Everything they have done since 7 has, to my point of view been one giant cluster. The constant updates their sneaky way of sneaking them in even though you have opted to wait till later is ib my opinion high handed to say the least.