Restore to smaller HDD

Due to a possible failing main drive, I needed to restore my Shadow Protect image back to a spare drive - but I've come across the old problem of not being able to restore to a smaller HDD! Which other backup progs allow this? I need to make another copy of my OS disk soon before it dies for good!

 

Shrink the disk? You mean partition it? Or is that a function within SP?

 

If you backed up the entire drive (example clone), theres no way with any imaging software to restore it to a smaller drive.

But if you backup each partition or do an image backup, then you can definitely restore that partition onto a smaller hard drive as long as the use space will fit.

Example I have a 200gb hard drive 2 partitions ( c: partition 20gb "6gb in use", d: partition 180gb "50gb in use" ), I will backup each partition seperately.

Now I have a 100gb hard drive 2 partitions ( cartition is 15gb, dartition is 85gb). I will easily be able to restore both my backups into the smaller partitions because the use data will easily fit inside. The imaging software will allow you to expand or shrink the backup to fit in the new partitions. The smaller hard drive will now be a copy of the larger drive but smaller.

I always backup and restore individual partitions because it offers me options on where I can restore them (smaller or larger hard drives). Clones usually only allow you to restore to larger drives.

I use true image, but I'm sure shadow protect or any other imaging software can restore larger partitions onto smaller partitions. It's a basic imaging task.

 

Not really true. I've been using Shadow Protect Desktop (SPD) for about a year, with versions 3.0, 3.1 and now currently 3.2. It will NOT permit restoring to a partition that is smaller than the partition from which the image was originally made, regardless of actual space used. Plus, if it's a fat32 partition, it will not restore to a larger one either. With fat32, an image restore can only be done using a target partition that is the same exact size as the original source partition. It doesn't matter how much of the partition is actually utilized. That situation and the lack of any direct disk-to-disk cloning ability are currently the two big deficiencies in SPD in my opinion.

 

You can do it with Ghost 2003 build 793. Just create the image and then restore it to your new drive.

Alan

 

A few posts on the SP forum appear to be saying that shrinking in 3.3 isn't all its cracked up to be (its already implemented in the IT version). I'm thinking of maybe trying Paragon or Image For Windows rather than messing with shrinking and partitions?

 

Unless I am misunderstanding:
Shrink the original partition
Couple of suggestions:
-Get a copy of BING from terabyte: ( free fully functional trial) make bootable floppy or CD: boot from the floppy or Cd: use bing to shrink partition..

- Get GParted -free- http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=04166 to shrink partition

_ Get Knoppix Cd -free- http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html boot and use partition tools to shrink ...
Both those tools have GUI and are simple to use..

## obviously there are limitations as to how much shrinkage you can achieve depending on space occupied and disc limits/architecture.

Then use your imager for restore. You could even use BING for image and restore

Those tools are safe +++.

For anxiety issues: make image first as you have, keep copy some where in case and if all else fails get bigger drive

fair warning: once you have seen what BING can do: you will buy
You will keep the Gparted Cd .. who knows where it may lead

Sorry edit links for Live Cd version of GParted

 

Thanks Longboard, sounds like a possible solution. But as I already own Paragon and IfW, would they work without shrinking? I'm worried about messing with the drive too much as it seems unstable and I don't want to cause anymore errors on it.

 

WRT IFW and I think BING re restore of an image:

The only other option afaics is shrink the original ??

ONe of the replies above suggested that Ghost could restore to a smaller partition, but , I suspect some limitations ... ??
I can only offer suggestions on what I know works, sorry.
Maybe some other tools offer restore to smaller partitions..??

You could try Markymoo who has extensive experience with DriveSnapshot..
BrianK is a Terabyte guru..

Good Luck.

PS grab an image with whatever allows you to browse and extract your files btw: just in case you have to do a reinstall..( eg IFW and TBIview )

 

Well if somebody could confirm if Paragon allows this I'd be very grateful!

 

you can try active@ drive image
it allows this.
paragon drive image too.
and farstone can.

drive imagexml cant.

 

rendez2k,

IFW ver 2 will allow you to restore to a smaller partition. On the final restore window you will see a minimum and maximum choice. I just did a test with WinXP in a 2000 MB partition. It contains 995 MB of data. I entered 995 MB for the new partition size in the choice window. That didn't work so I tried 1010 MB. That did work. WinXP booted and reports Used space is 995 MB. Free space is 16.5 MB. Reported partition size is 0.98 GB. Original partition size was 2 GB.

It works.

 

There you go: obvious limiting factor is the physical "size" of the data
Seek and ye shall find.
Up early Brian
Guess I'll have to ud to v2

 

I just tried 996 MB in IFW. It worked. The reported Free space is 356 KB. 1/3 of a MB. I'll see how WinXP functions. Slow, I'll bet.

Correction: The image was made with IFW. I've been restoring with IFD.

 

Longboard,

Great sunrise today. I'm surprised you don't have ver 2. It's much better than ver 1.

 

w/apologies to OP:

Here too: but; as i was coming home lol. Love my job

Yes, got it.
For my simple needs and integration with BING v1.x, IFW v1.x is good atm.
When I restore it is (unless I've borked something), often in conjunction with partition re-arrangements so tend to boot with, redo and restore with BING.
Because I made my purchase some time ago, I have the free upgrade option available, so happy to wait so far, with any luck BING v2 somwhere ....

I have been exploring the extended functions of IFW v2.x. Cool tool, no doubts about it.
Just not my primary tool -yet-

More recently IFW & IFL in conjunction with BING as boot manager.
The more I look the more I find.

 

My tests above are misleading. I was restoring into unallocated space which is not what rendez2k will be doing. When I tried to restore into a 1 GB partition I couldn't and there was a message that the partition should be at least 1306 MB. This makes sense because the data spread as observed in PerfectDisk is about two thirds of the original partition. The new partition can't be any smaller than the position of the last sector in use. If the last sector in use is at the end of the partition then you will need a partition that will contain that data spread so at times you may not gain much at all.

Defragmenting the partition before creating the image is helpful as it shifts data towards the start of the partition. But it doesn't always do a good job and the data spread is always larger than the amount of data in the partition.

 

OK : so within limitations as suggested for IFW/IFD
So to rendez2k : ?? back to shrinking partition

Unless some other tool will do the job ??

 

rendez2k hasn't told us the partition sizes or how much data is in the partition he has backed up. No sector restoring software can restore to a partition smaller than data spread (the last sector in use). So it's certainly possible but "it depends".

In my example I had an image of a 2 GB partition. I could restore that image to a 1306 MB partition even though the partition contained only 995 MB of data. Even so, 1306 is less than 2000.

 

The partition size currently is set to 700gb but only 97gb is used. I will need to get that on a 250gb drive if all goes badly wrong. I don't quite understand this data spread issue. Are you saying my 97gb is spread across the drive and so the image may still need to be up to 700gb?

 

Possibly, but almost certainly not.

Have a look at your partition in a defrag program. That will give you a good idea of where the last sector in use is placed.

97 GB in 700 GB. You would have to be unlucky for the last sector in use to be beyond the 250 GB mark. But it might be if the MFT is in the middle of the partition.

 

I use ultimate defrag and looking at the disc map I have data both in the center and outer tracks. If I run defrag and force the data all to the outer tracks I guess that will solve the issue?

I always thought that an imaging program would just re-write the data in a logical order when restoring an image, and not put it back in exactly the same place.

 

Worth trying but it probably won't move the MFT.

A sector image/restore program puts the sectors back just as there were on the old partition. Mister_Al mentioned Ghost 2003 as this doesn't do a sector restore. But I don't know how it handles the MFT.

Pete's suggestion of shrinking the partition and creating another image is looking good.