Backup to Network - Change HD - Boot from CD

Here's the situation. I've got a Dell laptop with a 40 gb drive (several years old) - I have an 80gb drive to put in, but I am not sure how to go about this (at least not 100% sure) -

So I'm kind of asking whether this is possible with TI 9 - and how to do it.

As I type, I'm backing up my laptop's drive to a drive on my local home network. What I'd like to do is to create a boot CD (no floppy available), with Network access, install the blank new 80gb drive, boot from the CD, and run TI to restore from the network drive to the new 80gb drive.

I don't know whether or not I CAN do this (most Internet pages talk of a boot floppy or a boot CD, without network access), OR:
whether or not it's possible to go ahead and install Windows XP on the new drive, install TI9, and then boot from the new drive and restore using the network backup...

Which is easiest?
Also - tips? or how?

 

The reality is that even if you install XP and TI and then do a restore of your active partition, the computer will reboot and you will end up in the Linux recovery environment which is what you have on the TI CD.

I would boot up the TI recovery CD and ensure that you can see your image on the remote computer and validate the image on the remote computer. This would provide a degree of confidence it should work. You may have to fiddle with the networking settings.

If you can't see your image file on the remote computer by clicking on "Computers Near Me" try putting the path and filename in the box using the UNC method of addressing. \\pcname\folder\filename.tib

 

I don't have a CD - I downloaded TI - -

I see "Bootable Rescue Media Builder" and "WinPE ISO Builder" in the Acronis menu (start/programs).
I'm assuming that one of these create the recovery CD, of which you speak, so I'm trying it right now - - it's taking a good amount of time (not much space left on HD)


It's still 'trying' to create the disk - it's been going over an hour - how long is this supposed to take?

 

you want to create the Bootable Rescue Media the WinPE ISO builder is different.

I have version 9 but creating the bootable CD should take only few minutes at most.

 

I got it created - tried restoring - I thought it worked, though it would not boot - - retrying it now, a second time - choosing the MBR and Track 0 first - then choosing the rest, as a second 'partition' - I'm not sure I fully understand the language here.

first, I check the NTFS partition (Pri.Act - 27.91 GB), and everything goes 'disabled' - then finally, the 80 gb drive shows up. I choose that one, choose 'Active' partion, change the partition size to the max available, and proceed, right?
Since it's an 80g drive, I max out the graphical Partition changer to 74.53 GB - it says there is 0 bytes of free space after that. I'm assuming that doesn't mean 'real' free space on the drive, after all files have been restored.

tell me if this all sounds right.

Is this supposed to work from a smaller to a larger drive?

 

Yes, it does work going from a smaller to larger drive. See this post by Menorcaman Restoring to a larger hard drive.

 

Sounds right.
If the drive was new it would not have a MBR on it so you do need to restore it.

The free space TI mentions refers to space left on the disk after the partition is created. The free space for your files is contained within the partition so that is no problem.

Yes, you are supposed to be able to go from smaller to larger.

 

Now I'm not sure what happened -
When the restore is complete, I'm told there is no operating system found when booting from the Hard drive.

I did a full backup, and used that restore file, but did I miss some setting?

I started from scratch again. The first time, I only had the 27.xgb sized partition and the MBR - this time, there were three.

There was a very small (relatively) partition (31.35mb, Fat16), with 'Pri' designation - I set it to Primary
Then, there was the main partition (27.xgb) with 'Pri,Act' designation - I assumed this meant Active, so I set it to Active
Then, I set the MBR - hoping this is all I need....don't understand why Dell set 31.35 mb as Fat16, though
(keeping my fingers crossed this time.)

--Update : Finally! We have a winner - it worked!
Thanks for everyone's help here - the local computer shop wanted to charge me $200 for doing this.