I’ve seen this a few times now. I’ve done a lot of Hard Drive to SSD upgrades recently and each time I’ve used the free version of Acronis True Image that comes with the Crucial SSDs.
This has worked wonderfully (apart from today when I hit a drive with bad blocks, but that’s another article) and the upgrade process has been very smooth. However I’ve noticed that on a few machines, the audio device is disabled after the clone?
The computers that had this problem all had one thing in common – Realtek HD Audio Controller Devices.
Turns out there’s a simple fix though:
Start Regedit and navigate to the following Key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\controlSet001\Services\HDAudBus
Modify REG_DWORD “Start” and change it to be 3
In Device Manager, uninstall the “high defintion audio controller”
Scan for hardware changes and it should reinstall the device and fix the problem!
After trying countless of things this actually worked right away, thanks a lot!
Thank You! Thank You!! Thank You!!! I have been fighting with this the whole DAY!!! I am not a computer guy and I thought I really messed things up!
I echo the same comments as above . How did you ever figure this out? Great job. I am going to pass this on to crucial.com
Thanks a lot, man Great job.
Yes, unlike the other suggestions this did work. Thanks. Now if Acronis could make it’s “cloning” software actually make a clone instead of a pseudo clone that would be great. There are always issues like this. The last system I did there were three different driver issues including the audio one described here that had to be fixed before the “clone” would work like the original did.
Dang didn’t work for me 🙁
Was missing entire Audio inputs and outputs category in Device Manager also missing Intel Display Audio and Realtek HD Audio under sound,video,game after cloning to new replacement disk using latest Seagate discwizard. Under system, HD Audio controller would not start. Applied this fix and sound now works and missing items reappeared. Clone operation also corrupted something in Broadcom Memory Stick and Intel Management Interface as these would not start. Found drivers for these and reinstalled ok. Fix did not reinstall Realtek manager app in control panel.
But at least I don’t have to boot my PC into the trash.
Cool ! you saved my day !
As simple as that. Thank you so much
Worked! Thank you! Like BH above I was missing a lot of sound inputs/outputs related to the motherboard sound inputs. The USB ones were detected. in device manager The HD audio controllers were both disabled with a message that something else was using them; disabling and re-enabling did not work. I used Acronis for WD drives. I Applied this fix and sound now works and missing items reappeared. Clone operation also corrupted something in ‘Intel Management Interface’ this was similarly disabled. I might deal with this later. My Realtek manager app in control panel seems fine.
Wow man! can i tell you how much i appreciate this! i signed up just to comment (and i hate signing up for something else:))) i don’t know how people like you exist. i didn’t even know what regedit was, how you knew about the ‘start number’ etc. i’m glad some other people commented so that i trusted it may work… and it did! i too used Acronis, i’m so lucky to have stumbled across your post because they’re suggestions were way too confusing. thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time. i too had the Realtek audio driver thingy’s. for anyone else, who like me was really scared – just take your time and find the exact settings in the regedit like he said, when you get to the ‘start’ that shows in the left panel just right click on it to ‘modify’ it and change it to the 3. thanks again.
EDIT from my earlier post from JC. i meant the RIGHT panel when you’re in Regedit & you see the ‘Start’ over there… that’s when you RIGHT click on it & then choose MODIFY. i only say this cuz it took me a few tries to figure it out because i’m an idiot:) -jc
I had the same problem today. This fix worked without any problems. Thank you for figuring this out. You saved my day for sure!
Thanks, after hours of searching how to get my audio back after installing this new Crucial hard drive, your solution was the remedy. Great work, scotia systems, you’re a hero.
My question NOW is, how and why did Acronis monkey with my computer’s registry settings during the cloning process? I checked my former target drive and it HAD the correct registry setting. Acronis changed it from three to four, breaking HD audio, during the drive cloning operation. Sketchy, no?