Restoring an image to a larger hard drive

Following a hard drive (SATA) failure and replacement with a larger drive then recovering with an image stored on a second internal drive using TI-10, build 4942, I find that I have a lot of unallocated space on the new drive as many have reported in the past.

Xpilot and others have reported a procedure in the past where you create a Secure Zone and then delete it with the software allowing you allocate the space freed up to an existing partition. I tried this at one time using the cloning method and it worked well. This doesn’t seem to work when simply installing an image from a .tib file. Cloning is not an option as the drive has failed and it perhaps had bad sectors anyway.

Other procedures were posted by Menorcaman (11/5/2005 and 6/7/2006) where he suggests performing a second restore creating an individual partition or perhaps partition. These two procedures are slightly different. With with a goal of ending up with a single full size partition on this new C: drive will this approach work? If this is true I suspect that the drive will have two partitions. Can one of them be totally deleted or just resized?

I’m trying to help my son accomplish this and we are communicating via telephone so I cannot see what is on his screen and therefore I perhaps lack some details.

Best regards,
Bruce

 

Have you tried doing the restore with resizing the partition to use the entire drive? (Select just the partition and then resize to fill the drive, then continue with the restore. You can also restore the MBR and Track 0 if needed when asked later if you want to restore any more partitions.)

What OS are you restoring?

 

Thank you for responding. Sorry that I didn't mention that the operating system is Windows XP Home edition w/SP2 and all updates.

I see that if the box labeled MBR and track 0 is not checked than re-sizing appears to be an option. I didn't do this. Hopefully the option to add the MBR later will exist. I assume that this has to be done before completing the restore. Think I will try it and see what happens.

Thanks again,
Bruce

Edit:
I don’t have any results yet but I plan to post the success or failure when known. Reviewing the TI-10 Users’ Guide I don’t see anything relating to re-sizing when restoring a .tib image to a new drive. A quick review of the TI-11 User’s Guide appears to be the same. Additionally a comment about when to include the MBR and track 0 should be provided. With cloning re-sizing appears to be covered but in the case of a dead boot drive where cloning is not an option, the procedure should be available.

As I proceed I will plan to restore the MBR and track 0 also. In the case of a boot drive (C) restore is this necessary?

 

This is an extract from an excellent posting by Menorcaman regarding resizing to a new & larger disk as part of an image restore.

 

Thanks for writing, greatly appreciated. I will give this a try and I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the second step to include the MBR and track 0 would be a prudent thing to do.

I would like to see this info written in the Users' Guide for future reference.

Thanks again,
Bruce

 

I don't see why the SZ trick wouldn't work in the case of a restore from a .tib file rather than a straight Clone. The way I look at it is that once the drive has be made and has unallocated space, then when you boot with the True Image rescue cd, it doesn't care whether that drive was created using TI's Recovery or Clone ... all it sees is a drive with unallocated space. N'est ce pas?

MudCrab ... another experiment for you.

 

Speaking with my son this evening I find that he was successful in restoring the full capacity of the new drive. It appears that the problem using the create SZ and then deleting it was caused by something that you pointed out and we neglected to follow. That is your comment that read in another posting “Do not accept the default to activate the Startup Recovery Manager.” We had done that. All is well and I wish to thank you and all of the other helpful folks that contributed in this effort. I would like to add that I would like to see Acronis adding a procedure of their liking to the Users’ Guides.

Thank you all once again for your contributions,
Bruce

 

This is in the TI 10 manual, starting on page 43.

It is also in the TI 11 manual, section 6.3.8, on page 51.

Though, I do agree that the instructions are not very clear about the procedure and they don't really seem to mention that you have to restore the partitions separately as you step through the Wizard in order for it to work.

This is a little later in the manual:

 

Thanks MudCrab. Guess I need to do some more reading. You are a great help.

Bruce

 

Oui.

It shouldn't make any difference if drive was cloned or restored from an image. I think I've done this before on a restored image, but I've done so many that I may be misremembering.

Also, the reason for not activating the SRM is because it messes with the MBR. However, that shouldn't cause the removal of the SZ to not combine the unallocated space with the selected partition (though, I have not run any tests on this, so perhaps it does). There may have been other factors at play here.

 

Well, it's a moot point now since the OP has solved the problem. As an aside just yesterday I used the SZ trick after cloning a Ubuntu system. It worked like a charm.
I don't see why Acronis wouldn't have this method in their User Guide. They should also change the SZ proceedure to NOT default to activating the SRM. In fact the default should be none and the user should have to choose one.

 

Hi DwnNdrty,

See my Post #7 and Acronis Support's reply at Post #9 in this very old thread.

Maybe the Acronis Development Team are still mulling over the suggestion I made on April 23rd 2005!!

Regards

Menorcaman

 

Indeed, Menorcaman ... as we say here in 'Murica ... it takes an act of Congress to get anything done.