Backup and Recovery 2010 Free Advanced - Problems with restore

Hello folks,

I have been making backups of my Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bits system regularly with Backup and Recovery 2010 Free Advanced. And last week my HD died suddenly. So I bought a new one with the same size (160 GB) and tried to restore my system, but I had some problems:

1) First attempt – I used the paragon rescue CD, booted my system using it and used the SAFE MODE option because the NORMAL MODE option doesn’t work under my system. The rescue CD finds my new HD (149GB unallocated space), it finds my backup image (2 partitions - 100MB System Reserved partition and 33GB Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bits files partition), but after I chose the option to recover the entire disk the rescue CD copies only the 100MB System reserved partition to the new 160GB HD leaving me with a disk with 2 partition: 100MB System reserved partition and a Free space partition with approximately 149GB. I tried everything, but it does not copy both partitions to the new HD, only the small one (100MB) and leaves the remaining space of the HD as Free space.

2) Second attempt – I used the BartPE rescue CD with Paragon plugin, booted my system using it and started Backup and Recovery 2010 Free Advanced. The rescue CD finds my new HD (149GB unallocated space), it finds my backup image (2 partitions - 100MB System Reserved partition and 33GB Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bits files partition), but after I chose the option to recover the entire disk the rescue CD copies only the 100MB System reserved partition to the new 160GB HD leaving me with a disk with 2 partition: 100MB System reserved partition and a Free space partition with approximately 149GB. I tried everything, but it does not copy both partitions to the new HD, only the small one (100MB) and leaves the remaining space of the HD as Free space. When I check one or both partitions under the old Hard Disk image it asks me where to “copy the files” to create a "Disk_C" folder. I don’t want to “copy the files” of my partitions I want to copy the entire HD image to the new HD.

Finally, I quit and reinstalled everything again. Could you help me here, so next time I don't have to reinstall everything again with defeats the main purpose of disk imaging my system? Please, I really need some help here.

See you later,

Aeolis

 

You can create a new primary NTFS partition in the free space and then restore the corresponding image to it.

If the Paragon program you are using does not include partition functions, you can use Partition Manager 11 Personal. There are also several free tools that can be used (from EASEUS and Partition Wizard, for example).

Also, if you have access to another computer with Windows 7 installed, and you can connect the disk to it, you can use the Windows disk management program to create the new partition.

 

Hello folks,

Dear Robin, thank you for your attention. I understand your point, but shouldn't Paragon be able to copy both partitions without user intervention (creating, deleting etc. partitions)? I thought it was the main purpose of the restore wizard.

Well, if user intervention is really required, could somebody provide me a step by step guide to restore this HD image I had made (both partitions, please)?

See you later,

Aeolis

 

Hi,

1. It is not impossible your new drive is slightly smaller than the original (nominally the same - but they will vary according to manufacturer ).

Image apps. can only restore to a smaller space using file level restore. Works fine , but takes a while.

If that is the case, images made of your new drive will restore in the normal way in future.

One way to avoid that is to shrink the partition a tad before creating an image.

2. If that is not the case, try restoring just the second (larger) partition image to the unallocated space.

 

Hello folks,

Dear SIW2 you are totally right! Thank you very much! I have a bigger HD (500GB) and I tried the same procedure I have used using the BartPE Paragon plugin and it worked (it's is able to copy both partitions and it is able to extend the second partition to the end of the disk), but when I try to restore to the new HD (160GB) it can't copy both partitions only the small one. I really didn't know that there was such a small difference between HD manufactures sizes and that this difference could cause this sort of problem. Well, again thank you very much SIW2 for enlightening me!

Dear SIW2 could you help me with the procedure that you told me before to shrink a bit the second partition, so I would not have this size problem again? I mean which tools to use and a the step by step procedure or maybe a guide in the Internet to read and learn how to do that.

See you later,

Aeolis