System Image File error

[aruwin]

Ok, this is really gonna sound very very complicated. But I will explain to you one by one.
I have this laptop with Windows 7 as the operating system and with a capacity of 500 GB. My HDD was making loud noises and weird noises so I brought it to the shop and they told me to change the HDD because it might die anytime. So I did a full backup on my external hardisk, meaning that I cloned my laptop.
I changed my 500gb HDD with a 240gb SSD. And when I tried to restore my backup files into the new drive, there's an error:
"no disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found".

So I did some research on the internet and found out the reason of the error : it's because the image created was from a bigger drive than the new drive I put into my laptop. Even though my backup files are only about 100gb, I still cant restore it to my 240gb SSD because the image created was from my 500gb HDD.

Now I am trying to fix this, do you think this will work?
I am going to copy my backup files into an external hardisk with a capacity of 200gb and then backup from that drive and then I will restore it into my 240gb SSD. Will the backup file be considered as a backup from the 200gb drive or from the original 500gb HDD?

 

[marsmimar]

Hello aruwin and welcome to Seven Forums.

This might be one of those times when it's advisable to spend $20 to fix this issue. Paragon has a migration tool that will take your HDD system image and transfer it to a smaller SSD.

Assuming you used the native Windows 7 backup and imaging tool, you could have additional problems trying to copy the image to a smaller HDD. Apparently, Windows 7 doesn't offer the same flexibility as other imaging tools like Acronis, Macrium, etc. It may not be worth the risk to damage or corrupt your only image.

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD - System migration to Solid State Drives (SSD) - Overview

Perhaps some other Forum members know of a completely free utility that would accomplish the same thing as the Paragon migration tool.

 

[aruwin]

Hello aruwin and welcome to Seven Forums.

This might be one of those times when it's advisable to spend $20 to fix this issue. Paragon has a migration tool that will take your HDD system image and transfer it to a smaller SSD.

Assuming you used the native Windows 7 backup and imaging tool, you could have additional problems trying to copy the image to a smaller HDD. Apparently, Windows 7 doesn't offer the same flexibility as other imaging tools like Acronis, Macrium, etc. It may not be worth the risk to damage or corrupt your only image.

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD - System migration to Solid State Drives (SSD) - Overview

Perhaps some other Forum members know of a completely free utility that would accomplish the same thing as the Paragon migration tool.

I have tried doing what you told me using other similar softwares but the process was too complicated and somehow I can't directly migrate the image into the C: drive .
Now, is there any other way to solve this? I didn't know that we couldn't restore a system image that comes from s bigger source drive although the size of the system image is smaller than the destination drive!

 

[mjf]

I think Paragon Migrate is as simple as you're going to get. But in the mean time assuming your HDD is still functioning I would make another image using the free Macrium Reflect in case your HDD suddenly dies.

Having said this, some members would recommend a clean install to a new SSD. (Yes I know it can be time consuming!)

 

[aruwin]

I think Paragon Migrate is as simple as you're going to get. But in the mean time assuming your HDD is still functioning I would make another image using the free Macrium Reflect in case your HDD suddenly dies.

Having said this, some members would recommend a clean install to a new SSD. (Yes I know it can be time consuming!)

How am I gonna use that software? Can I just restore the backup that I have made with Windows?? I have no way to backup the file again because I can't reinstall the HDD back into the laptop myself as I am using Dell XPS and it's impossible to open it myself.

 

[mjf]

...so I brought it to the shop and they told me to change the HDD because it might die anytime.
...I changed my 500gb HDD with a 240gb SSD. And when I tried to restore my backup files into the new drive

Do you mean the shop changed the HDD with the SSD?
Did you explain to the shop your intentions? If you did then I wonder about this "shop".

So is this the situation:
1) the shop installed a new SSD piece of hardware with no boot capability
2) you have a Windows based Image on an external HDD and that is all
3) you have a laptop (your specs say nothing about it).
4) no offense intended but are you a little new to the hardware/software side of things.

If yes to most of these then more info on your laptop would help. But you have these options as I see it:
1) Attach your Windows image that is on your external HDD then reduce the size of the image partition to just under the SSD size. Then use free Macrium reflect to image the reduced attached partition. Then reimage the Macrium image to the new installed SSD.
**** NOW this is all quite a bit technical unfortunately.
But then
2) You can do a clean install of your laptop
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html
Again a bit technical.
3) Ring up the laptop distributor and see if they can help out.
4) See what "the shop" has to say.

Get back to the Forum and members (who have better suggestions than mine!!! may help)

Your problem fix is doable but requires some technical experience.

 

[aruwin]

...so I brought it to the shop and they told me to change the HDD because it might die anytime.
...I changed my 500gb HDD with a 240gb SSD. And when I tried to restore my backup files into the new drive

Do you mean the shop changed the HDD with the SSD?
Did you explain to the shop your intentions? If you did then I wonder about this "shop".

So is this the situation:
1) the shop installed a new SSD piece of hardware with no boot capability
2) you have a Windows based Image on an external HDD and that is all
3) you have a laptop (your specs say nothing about it).
4) no offense intended but are you a little new to the hardware/software side of things.

Ok, here is my situation.
1. I have a laptop with Windows 7 home premium 64-bit operating system.
2. The internal HDD of the laptop is 500 gb but I only used about 100gb of it.
3. I did a backup including system image copy using windows backup and restore function into an external hard disk which I have partitioned into 300gb (the whole hard disk is 1TB)
4. I changed the internal HDD with a new 240gb SSD.
5. Went home to do the restore from the backup and got that error I mentioned in my first post.

 

[mjf]

My advice above applies.
For these types of operations (which I have done) I have used Macrium - Windows imaging is too constraining.

 

[aruwin]

1) Attach your Windows image that is on your external HDD then reduce the size of the image partition to just under the SSD size. Then use free Macrium reflect to image the reduced attached partition. Then reimage the Macrium image to the new installed SSD.
**** NOW this is all quite a bit technical unfortunately.


Get back to the Forum and members (who have better suggestions than mine!!! may help)

Your problem fix is doable but requires some technical experience.

Ok, I am gonna try using Macrium. So, what do you mean by "attach windows image that is on your external HDD"? Where do I attach it to?

Now here's what I think I'm gonna do and tell me if you think it's gonna work.
I am gonna specify the terms here so we won't get mixed up,ok?
The original HDD that I had that I imaged from => original HDD
The location where I imaged my file to => external hard disk
The new SSD that I just installed into my laptop where I intend to restore all my system that was on the original HDD => SSD

I will image the backed up system image that is on the external hard disk into a new partition on the same hard disk. And then I will shrink the newly backed up image into 200gb. And then I am going image that backup into another partition. Lastly, I will try and restore it using Macrium.

Summary:
image backup on external hard disk -> new partition-> shrink the partition and backup again-> image the shrinked partition into a new partition -> restore.

Will this work? My original HDD remains untouched, though...I don't know how to install back into the laptop to make a new cloning from it.