Restore Disk Signature - TI 2009 Home

A simple question I hope. I have a notebook computer running Vista Home Premium and would like to move the system to a larger hdd. I have taken a complete system image with TI Home 2009 (latest release) and now need to do the restore to the larger hdd. I'm NOT doing a cloning operation.

I've read the manual and it mentions the option to "restore disk signature". This seems like something I would want to do but I don't know for sure. Can someone advise on this, please.

The old hdd has only one partition and I plan to move it to a larger hdd that will have one partition as well. BTW, does it matter whether I start with one newly formatted partition or unallocated space on the larger target drive?

Thanks.

 

What is 'Restore Disk Signature' in Partition Restore Wizard?
Support extract:
You should select the "Restore Disk Signature" option if you recover the archive of the entire hard drive to a new hard
drive. Acronis program changes the signature by default during the recovery, this can lead to a discrepancy in functionality of several programs. For example, Acronis True Image creates scheduled tasks in accordance with the hard disk signature. If you restore the same disk signature, you don't need to re-create or edit the tasks created previously.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=226572​

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As for restoring to a larger drive, check line 3 of my signature below. It refers to previous versions but the concept is the same.

Have you looked at Windows Computer Management to see whether you have an hidden or diagnostic partitions?

When you performed the backup, did you checkmark the disk option?
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=182029&stc=1&d=1154752686

When restoring, you will NOT want to check mark the disk option restore, but instead check mark all the partitions shown in the Computer Management graphical display. Do NOT checkmark Track 0/mbr. If you do, that will make it a disk restore and you will loose the ability to resize your single partition. Yes, check mark the disk signature option.

Don't forget, TI gives you the ability to practice and practice and practice. It is practice or simulate the restore as long as you do not press the PROCEED option listed at the bottom of the summary screen.

 

Thank you!! That's perfect. The drive only has the one partition I'll do the restore of just that partition without the MBR so I can resize it to fill the new drive. So the disk signature is a moot point.

As you suggested I practiced up to the "proceed" button before stopping. When I clicked on the link to resize the partition it started out with 0.03 GB (or some small number) before the partition. I dragged the slider to zero on each end to fill the drive. Do you need to leave a little room at the beginning for the MBR? Or does dragging it to zero space before just refer to the available space for the partition. I assume the latter.

Thanks.

 

You indicated you wanted one larger partitiion. Then you want zero free space both before and after. Yes, you want to check the disk signature.

 

If I restore only the partition without the MBR (so I can resize) then there is no opportunity to select "restore disk signature".

Do I complete the first restore of the main partition and then do a second restore operation of the MBR so I can select the "restore disk signature".

Or do I just stop after the first restore?

Thanks again.

 

If you want to restore the Disk Signature, just do the MBR restore after you do the partition restore.

 

Roger that. Thank you.

 

A follow up for those interested. I did the restore of my C: partition to a larger hdd and resized to fill the entire drive. When that restore was done I did a second restore of the MBR and selected the option to restore disk signature. The restore went smoothly and the system booted right up. No issues at all.

As an aside, I'd been using TI 10 with my Windows XP systems. The laptop under discussion here used to have XP on it and I captured system images and restored them with TI 10 in the past. True Image 2009 runs significantly faster both capturing an image (in Windows Vista) and restoring the image (from the boot CD) than TI 10. Somewhere around twice as fast and maybe faster.

Thanks to all for your time and input.

 

Thank you for the update. Your success is what is supposed to happen all the time. Your system is less complicated than some of the others but the basic principles apply. The use of the disk signature by software vendors in their programs would seem to indicate that restoring the "disk signature" will become the norm when restoring to a new disk.