restoring system image to a different hard drive

In Backup and Recovery 2012 Free, can one restore an image backup of one's system drive to a different hard drive (as an image, of course, so that the new hard drive functions properly as a system drive? How about in the paid version of Backup and Recovery 2012? Thank you very much. -Alan

 

This is a standard function of imaging programs. I haven´t tried B&R 2012, but it certainly can be done in Hard Disk Manager 12.

I am currently working from a second internal disk in which an image of the first internal disk was restored. Remember that Windows can´t boot from external USB disks.

 

Why not? As long as it's a USB 2.0 or you have your USB 3.0 port on the mother board so it sees the drive at boot up. That should work.

 

Thanks for your reply. Good to know that Windows limitation. As for restoring to a different hard drives, the feature has not been included in some other companies' free offerings (e.g. AeseUS's). So if Paragon does offer it, I'll be pleased. -Alan

 

Win7 can. Just need a couple of registry changes. Win8 can - it already has those registry entries.

Slow , though. Bit better with usb3.0

 

Thanks. Would prefer to avoid doing it with Win 7, but that's a nice fallback.

 

I think my first use of Paragon, I made a clone or exact copy on my internal HD. It was on a USB 2.0 port, I booted into the boot selection menu, selected that drive, W7 asked if I wanted to change my boot drive to the newly selected drive but I bailed at that point.

It "seems" that no registry changes are needed to boot from an external HD.

 

lol.
That is just Paragon default behaviour

After cloning a HD , it asks if you wan to switch boot drives.

It doesn't check to see if you cloned to usb drive.

If you try and boot Windows 7 via usb it will bsod unless you do the registry changes.

Guaranteed.

If you are using usb3 you will also need to have the correct usb3 drivers installed.



You can use a usb drive for windows pe.

The entire .wim loads into a virtual HD in RAM .

Windows pe boots from there - not from the usb stick.

 

Your not talking about booting from a USB 3 are you? Drivers load after the boot up sequence, too late if your using a USB 3 card. Am I missing something?

If a registry edit is needed to boot from a external drive it would to be done before hand or on the source of the copy.

 

The same as a normal installation - just a bit added in the middle for a couple of registry changes.


Apply the image to the target usb connected HD.

Then load the registry hives, make the changes, unload the hives.

( If it is usb 3.0 - the drivers must be injected at that point - or you could have injected them beforehand into the image in install.wim )

Carry on a usual from there, i.e. run bcdboot and restart to complete installation.

 

Okay, I'll take your word on that procedure. Much too complicated for the average user like me.

 

It's been a bummer that Windows 7 doesn't support booting/install to external USB 2.0 drives (did Microsoft ever explain why?).

During Win 7 beta, the missing external USB boot functionality in Windows motivated me to figure out an alternative: it turns out that Windows 7 supports installation/booting from external eSATA drives ( Seagate FreeAgent Desktop Pro drives w/ USB 2.0 AND eSATA interfaces). I was using an OEM Promise 2 port eSATA PCI card that came bundled with an older Seagate eSATA drive that had died.

Finding drivers for the niche, defunct, oem hardware was a challenge. I finally found Vista drivers for a somewhat similar PCI card with the same chipset, buried on the Promise web site. Thankfully, Windows 7 accepted the Vista drivers and Setup makes it easy to install device drivers (via the Load Drivers button on the Win 7 disk partition and formatting screen). I've been booting Win 7 via external eSATA every day since then and of course eSATA is a 2x-4x faster than USB 2.0

I haven't personally heard how others have done re: installing/booting Win 7 via external eSATA drives...

 

What changes should be made to the rgistry...? Can you please post for those who don't know what to do or for the newbies aroud..? That will be a great help there. I also would like to try booting from an external so I asked.

 

Change letter R to the partition letter you have applied win7 image to

reg load HKLM\VTemp R:\windows\system32\config\system
reg add "HKLM\VTemp\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management" /v PagingFiles /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d "" /f
reg delete "HKLM\VTemp\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management" /v ExistingPageFiles /f
reg add "HKLM\VTemp\ControlSet001\Control\PnP" /f /v PollBootPartitionTimeout /t REG_DWORD /d 30000
reg add "HKLM\VTemp\ControlSet001\Control" /f /v BootDriverFlags /t REG_DWORD /d 0x6
reg unload HKLM\VTemp

You can put that in a .bat or .cmd file if you like - saves typing.

 

Yes with the BR 2012 Free you do have the ability to restore to a different size drive.