Cannot Format New Drive

Well, here we go again. Another problem with another hard drive. I'm going to replace my existing 500GB OS drive in my Dell XPS-17 L702X with a 1TB drive. The drive is a "WD Black 1TB Performance Mobile Hard Disk Drive-7200 RPM SATA 6 GB/s 32 MB Cache 9.5 MM 2.5 Inch WD10JPLX", the exact same drive that I just replaced my laptop's secondary drive with. I have checked this new drive and it is working properly.

The new "secondary" 1TB drive was installed in the laptop and then formatted. It is working properly and I have experienced no problems with it, although I'll change it from "Active" to "Inactive" in the next few days, even though the "Active" configuration should not cause me any problems as my OS is going to boot from the primary OS drive. However, this new 1TB "primary" OS drive is in a "iDsonix Tool Free USB 3.0/2.0 to SATA 2.5/3.5 Inch Hard Drive Docking Station", as I am attempting to use Acronis True Image Home 2018 to clone my existing OS drive. I will then substitute the existing 500GB OS drive with this new 1TB cloned drive. The reason I don't want to just remove my old OS drive, install the new empty 1TB OS drive in the laptop and then install a fresh version of Windows 10 Pro x64 onto it after formatting it from within Windows 10 is because I use Office 365 and I have 27 email accounts on Outlook 2016, 25 of the accounts being Microsoft email accounts. It's a PITA to add 27 email accounts to Outlook 2016 since Microsoft changed its server system. I have to alter my registry before Windows will allow me to add all 25 Microsoft email accounts to the server. If I don't alter the registry I am limited to adding only 10 Microsoft accounts to its servers.

First problem: I cannot format the new drive while it's in the docking station. For some reason, when I do a "quick" format it shows as being formatted but Acronis cannot clone it. When I attempt to do the extended format it always gets to 3% and then the process stops. The drive is still listed in Disk Management when the extended formatting process stops. I then attempted to format it by letting Acronis format it during the cloning process but I get a message that Acronis cannot clone the disk.

What am I doing wrong? It's a new 1TB drive and it is working properly. Thank you in advance for your time and any assistance provided.

When you say you can't format have you first created partitions if not you can't format if you have have you set it as mbr or gpt? A screenshot from disk management would help us

I would just clone the old drive to the new drive you won't lose anything or have to reset up anything check out Macrium Reflect they have a version for servers.
By Cloning your new drive, It will look exactly like your old drive so every thing stays activated and connected. Sounds to me exactly what you need to do. You can't lose anything since after the clone is completed you shut down your computer and remove the old drive it is unchanged if for some reason the clone doesn't work all you have to do it put the old drive back in and carry on.

I can't help with the server edition but the free and home version have tutioral here in the forum and lots of Videos on YouTube. Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZqk...oQ7_DtyG&t=73s

Samuria said:

When you say you can't format have you first created partitions if not you can't format if you have have you set it as mbr or gpt? A screenshot from disk management would help us

Hello Samuria. Thank you for your prompt reply. I appreciate it very much.

This is a new 1TB drive to replace the existing 500GB drive C in my laptop. There is nothing on the drive. I was simply trying to format the drive so that I could use Acronis TIH 2018 to clone my existing drive C onto this one, which is residing in a docking station. I wanted to clone it first and then switch it with the existing one. For some reason my Windows 10 Pro x64 cannot format the new drive while it is in the docking station and Acronis cannot format it during the cloning process while it resides in the docking station. I simply wanted to format it into a single partition and then let Acronis clone my existing drive's OS onto it. At that time the partitions would be created when the OS was cloned.

I've formatted dozens of drives successfully but the drives were already installed in my computers. I've never attempted to clone a drive while it was in a docking station or or in a simple hard drive enclosure. I've reached the point where I'm simply going to remove my existing C drive and install this new drive in its place, at which time I'll use my Windows 10 Pro x64 DVD that I created with an ISO from Microsoft. Once I've done that I'll attempt to use the backup I have stored on my secondary internal drive or the one I have on an external drive, which will give me an exact copy of what I'm using now, provided I'm successful. If successful, I'll then reinstall it while keeping all my files. I am not going to do a clean install and then have to configure all 27 email accounts back onto Outlook 2016. It's too much of a hassle and takes a tremendous amount of time. I've attached a screenshot of Disk Management showing that I CANNOT format this new drive while in a docking station.

I have attached screenshots showing that this new drive cannot be formatted. The drive I am attempting to format is identified as either/both "New Volume" or "Disk 2 partition 1". Both drive listings are the same new 1TB drive I am attempting to format. Keep in mind that at the top of the Computer Management window even when it shows as formatted it is not formatted. The formatting process stops at 3% when being formatted by Windows and will not format at all when using Acronis during the cloning process. The new drive was set as MBR, although I'm pretty sure GPT would be OK and would actually be better.

Clintlgm said:

I would just clone the old drive to the new drive you won't lose anything or have to reset up anything check out Macrium Reflect they have a version for servers.

Thank you, Clintlgm, for your prompt reply. That is exactly what I am attempting to do, as I explained to Samuria in the post before your post. I can't clone it as neither Windows nor Acronis seems to be able to format it and when I let Acronis format it during the cloning process Acronis can't clone it because Acronis can't format it. This drive is a brand new drive, exactly like the one I just put in to replace my old 500GB secondary internal drive. The new secondary drive was simply switched with the old one and then formatted from within Windows. I then copied the content from the old secondary internal drive from an external drive that I had copied it to.

I can't seem to format or clone this one (for the OS) while it's in the docking station. They say that ignorance is bliss but I'm not feeling too blissful at the moment but then again, I'm not upset, impatient, frustrated or aggravated because that would achieve absolutely nothing.

Can you confirm you did create a paritionon the drive as its not showing up it wont format unless you create one. Cloning and copying shouldnt be a problem on external drive provided you are using a powered enclosure

I don't have issues formatting drives in a Thermaltake BlacX USB dock.

I don't use software for cloning but an Eaxer 2-bay doc that does only hardware cloning, not have the USB cable connected to a computer. For some users the only issue would be it is an exact clone, can't change partition sizes in the process. I did a 250GB to a 500GB Notebook drive and had 2 large partitions along with 3 small ones, just created a partition and formatted the resultant extra space and will use it for data storage.

Sichuan said:

Thank you, Clintlgm, for your prompt reply. That is exactly what I am attempting to do, as I explained to Samuria in the post before your post. I can't clone it as neither Windows nor Acronis seems to be able to format it and when I let Acronis format it during the cloning process Acronis can't clone it because Acronis can't format it. This drive is a brand new drive, exactly like the one I just put in to replace my old 500GB secondary internal drive. The new secondary drive was simply switched with the old one and then formatted from within Windows. I then copied the content from the old secondary internal drive from an external drive that I had copied it to.

I can't seem to format or clone this one (for the OS) while it's in the docking station. They say that ignorance is bliss but I'm not feeling too blissful at the moment but then again, I'm not upset, impatient, frustrated or aggravated because that would achieve absolutely nothing.

Macr

Macrium doesn't care if it's formatted our not since it cloning your entire disk it will automatically be formatted and activated I just did two SSD cloning the OS to the new RAW SSD in SATA to USB adapter worked perfectly.
I quit Acronis back in 2015 because of these kinds of problems

Berton said:

I don't have issues formatting drives in a Thermaltake BlacX USB dock.

I don't use software for cloning but an Eaxer 2-bay doc that does only hardware cloning, not have the USB cable connected to a computer. For some users the only issue would be it is an exact clone, can't change partition sizes in the process. I did a 250GB to a 500GB Notebook drive and had 2 large partitions along with 3 small ones, just created a partition and formatted the resultant extra space and will use it for data storage.

With Macrium you just expand or contract partition C during the clone, check out the video I linked earlier

Thank you again, Clintlgm, for your prompt replies. I've read a lot about Macrium Reflect while reading articles written by Leo Notenboom. It seems to be a good product but I see no need to pay for Macrium as I currently use the Acronis software. I found this article after doing several days of research concerning my problem:

"(!) The important point to remember is that you need to put the new drive in the laptop first, and connect the old drive via USB. Only after this you may do the cloning. Otherwise you will not be able to boot from the new cloned drive. As such, hard disk bays cannot be used for target disks. For example, if you have a target hard disk (i.e. the new disk to which you clone, and from which you intend to boot the machine) in a bay, and not physically inside the laptop, the target hard disk will be unbootable after the cloning.
(!) Do not clone your system disk to a USB-drive, Windows cannot boot from a USB-drive.
(!) The cloning should be done from Acronis Bootable Media (created on CD/DVD or Flash). When cloning from Acronis Bootable Media, you do not need to have an operating system or an Acronis product installed on the new drive. You do not even need to have the new drive formatted to do the cloning."

I've decided to do one of two things. I'll either put the new drive in the laptop and the existing drive in the docking station, as Acronis instructs, or I'll put the new drive in the laptop, install a clean version of Windows 10 Pro x64 from the ISO DVD I have and then use an existing Acronis backup stored on my secondary internal drive or the one stored on my external drive, although I don't know whether or not an existing backup created from my existing drive will work on a new drive.

Thank you again for your time and assistance.