Cloning

I'm new here. I did a search and couldn't find what I wanted. I'm looking for a software that can clone my HDD (500 GB of which 60 GB is used) in my laptop to a smaller SSD (120 GB). Then I want to take out the original HDD and keep it on the side and put my SSD in the laptop. Will Backup & Recovery 2011 (Advanced) Free do this? Thanks

 

Just make a smart backup of the HDD all 60GB of it, and do a recovery into the SSD, you can do it all using Windows. Just make sure that under General Options the Partition Alignment Mode is set to Vista.

shud down the computer and remove the HDD installing the SSD and start it again, it should run just fine.

 

this does not work.
I dropped a support request with paragon as I have not seen this issue previously and have done many bootable restores.
new SSD drive 0 that is smaller than the drive backed up, though the data is tiny... 17gb. put the archive on USB drive [spinning drive].
built media [2011 Advanced Free English] and ran restore. it all looked good, except when Apply'd, it flashed something [not sure what] in a blink of an eye, pronounced all tasks finished, no error messages. of course, there was nothing but gibberish on the drive.
I tried this with both the 'resize proportionally' switch and without, with same results. I used the "create partition' utility to put an ntfs partition on the drive, again, the task finished as though it were correct, but it was not. no usable partition though it did 'mark' the drive as having one. had to use windows to wipe that out and start over.

don't know what the issue is, but install Winxp pro sp3 from CD goes like clockwork.

I note that the paragon marketeering on this version features a "Shrink Restore" but there is nothing either in the manual or in the restore wizard with any detail or instruction or useful information. only the "resize' switch which has been in every version

 

You could have a poor or non-existent driver for the SSD in the Linux recovery media or there is a bug in the program for what you want to do.

Does the recovery version identify the drive correctly and are there some other operations you can try? (I don't think the Verify works from the CD version and I have a support request in for this but if anybody knows differently let me know.)

Have you a regular spinning HD to test the resizing perhaps by setting up a 20GB partition and trying to restore to it?

 

the media version reads the drive ID fine, and as I said, it did create a partition, using the space [or at least it indicated such]. it just isn't showing me how to "shrink restore". did they forget to put a feature in, however left the marketing terminology ...
ah this is so maddening because I've done larger-to-smaller restores previously but I'm just not seeing the 'how'.
the term "SSD" isn't even in the manual, but I take that as a positive sign... its nothing special. heck if they can move the image to a USB stick...

here is the exact comment from page one of the manual:
"Restore with Shrink to restore a backup image to a free block of smaller size taking into account only the
amount of actual data of the image."

only other mention is just a little ways down, more marketingspeak:
"Paragon Restore with Shrink™ technology to restore a backup image to a free block of smaller size taking
into account only the amount of actual data of the image.

no other mention in the entire manual, nor on any menu that I can find eithe in the full or the 'media' version.