Macrium Reflect Image restore on new HDD

[slipstream55]

Hi.


I am replacing the 750GB HDD on my Asus laptop with a 1TB HDD. When I setup my laptop in 2011, I used Macrium Reflect to create (System?) images in three stages of setup...Windows 7 Pro w/ SP1, Windows 7 Pro w/ SP1, WIFI driver and Windows updates and lastly, Windows 7 Pro w/ SP1, updates and all Asus laptop drivers.


I have created a Primary partition of about 130GB on the new HDD and would like to install one of the three flavors of images I created in 2011 since the OS is already activated. The original HDD had a partition size of 210GB I think. The only thing different from the original setup and now is the new HDD.


Can I install the intended image on the new HDD without encountering any problems? Am I going about this correctly by pre-partitioning and formatting the new HDD (avoiding the 100MB recovery partition) before using Macrium and the Windows PE3 recovery media to install the image? I am trying to do this before the end of July so that I have the 2 Windows updates needed for SHA-2 support for continued updates thru the end of this year and have a somewhat clean install of Windows 7 on the new HDD. Thanks for any help in advance.


Mark

 

[SIW2]

You shouldn't have any problems restoring an image to a larger HD.

 

[slipstream55]

It's a larger HDD but a smaller partition than the original partition the image was created from.

 

[dg1261]

You should be fine as long as the new partition is at least large enough to accommodate the contents of the original partition.

Am I going about this correctly by pre-partitioning and formatting the new HDD (avoiding the 100MB recovery partition) ...

There are two ways to do this. You can create your destination partition beforehand (as you have done), or you can leave the destination unpartitioned and use Macrium's ability to resize the destination partition as it makes it. You should be fine with your current plan.


I'm guessing by "100MB recovery partition" you mean a System Reserved partition, which is usually 100MB. I don't know about Asus, but recovery partitions are usually more than 100MB.

IAC, if you're intending to create a stand-alone OS partition you may have to do a little repair work after restoring the image. A typical OEM system has the initial boot configuration in the System Reserved (aka, "System") partition, which then chains to the OS (aka, "Boot") partition. If you ditch the SR partition you need to transfer or recreate the boot configuration on the OS partition so it functions as both "System" and "Boot".

Fortunately, Macrium has a simple button to do that. See steps 11-15 in this tutorial I made awhile ago.

 

[RolandJS]

It's a larger HDD but a smaller partition than the original partition the image was created from.

If the "exploded" or "expanded" or "full-blown" restore total byte-count fits within the smaller partition, all should go well. For example, MR7 created a compressed image of all the stuff on a 100.2 GB partition -- stuff that byte-totaled 75 GB. Let's say the smaller receiving partition is 90.5 GB, the 75GB worth of stuff should fit into that 90.5GB. I think most backup/restore programs have to be "told" that this is happening.

"Am I going about this correctly by pre-partitioning and formatting the new HDD (avoiding the 100MB recovery partition) ..." If your Windows originally created, and its Startup Repair normally re-creates, a 100MB System Reserved partition, I'm thinking it might be best to "let" Windows continue to work that way.

 

[slipstream55]

Well...I was finally able to find a copy of restore media I had created back in 2012 and the image restore executed flawlessly. I used the second of three images I had created that had the clean Windows 7 Pro install with some updates and all of the Asus drivers.


Question...Does the image restore depend on both the Macrium Reflect image file and the HDD the image was originally created on or just the .mrimg file? I would like to move all of my Macrium images to a larger external HDD as I am now running out of room on the original backup HDD. Thanks in advance for your replys.


Mark

 

[dg1261]

Does the image restore depend on both the Macrium Reflect image file and the HDD the image was originally created on or just the .mrimg file? I would like to move all of my Macrium images to a larger external HDD as I am now running out of room on the original backup HDD.

The image consists only of the files. The storage location is not relevant to the image.

As they are merely files, they can be stored anywhere files can be stored. For example, you can copy or move them to an external drive, a FAT32 volume, a NTFS volume, a network share on your LAN, or even to a set of DVDs. Of course, this will be subject to any limitations of the storage location's file system ... you can't put them on 4.7GB DVDs if each file is 10GB, for instance.

When you need to restore, you'll instruct MR to browse to the location where you moved the image files.

Note that a single image is probably split into multiple files, in which case the image consists of the entire fileset. Each file in the fileset is useless without the entire set of all files comprising that image. For instance, you may have files:

jan-00-00.mrmig
jan-00-01.mrimg
jan-00-02.mrimg
feb-00-00.mrimg
feb-00-01.mrimg
feb-00-02.mrimg​

but these are all pieces of two separate images ("jan" and "feb"). All the "jans" must be kept together and all the "febs" kept together, but you could move all the "jans" to one subfolder if you want, and all the "febs" to another folder.

I normally keep each image in a separate folder to help with the housekeeping. The folder name doesn't have to match the image name, so use whatever suits you. (I usually name mine by the image date.)

 

[RolandJS]

If your MR has been making logs, the logs won't point correctly -- if any particular image was moved after the attached log's creation. For some reason, I never clicked MR make a log.