System Image - Hard Drive Clone

[Morph1]

Hi there,

I am stack at certain process while trying to load a system image onto new hard drive using Windows 7 x64 image restore function from the windows 7 disk,
its kind of strange but let me explain whats happening,
I got my primary drive 500 gigs with windows 7 and all my files,
I made a system image onto another clean internal hard drive size 160 gigs and I was successful, now I disconnected my 500 gigs primary hard drive, attached a new 250 gig hard drive and I proceeded to load the system image, I boot to windows 7 cd,
I get the option to repair , click on restore from system image file , everything looks good computer finds the hard drive 160 gigs with the system image as source,
I press next look for the target drive and I see it there 250 gigs drive thats freshly formatted ..., I select the target press next it all looks good and then I get the screen that there is no target hard drive... I made sure that this hard drive is not being excluded from format and new process... I am lost ... what am I doing wrong here, I reformatted those 2 drives twice I tried this operation about 8 times , I get the error message each time I am attempting to create this new system image...,
can anyone help out...

thanks,

Drew

 

[cyclic]

Have a look in the disk manager, sometimes disks have to be initialised before they can be seen by the system. Does it have a drive letter asigned ?

 

[Morph1]

thank you for your reply,
the disk has been initialized and yes there is a drive letter assigned to it.....,
any other ideas ??

 

[Hanna 1]

Morph1
Boot your system with the 500 gigs , Attach you 250 gigs to a usb port, clone & not image the 250, turn off your computer, swap your hard drives and I think you get what you want.
Good luck

 

[mjf]

With Windows imaging you must reimage to a HDD at least as large as the initial HDD. This has nothing to do with how much data you are imaging.
The reason is that Windows always replace the Master Boot Record (MBR). This contains the partition table for the original HDD (a 500GB drive). Windows is saying there is no suitable HDD to reimage to.

If you post a full Disk Management screen shot of your 500GB HDD we can guide you through how to do it. It would be best to use something like free Macrium Reflect.

 

[Morph1]

thanks MJF,

So is that the only problem here the size of my target drive in my case ?,
can I just create a partition on my 500 gig drive to equal to my original 250 gig from which the image was created ??, this is sickening how much of BS a legitimate windows user have to go through to create a simple drive image....
Hope to sort this out soon...,

thanks for the help, looking forward to your reply.

Cheers,


Andy

 

[mjf]

The size issue is certainly a main problem. It may be your only problem.
I suggest you do decrease the partition size to just under 250GB. Then use the free version of this software which I also use and is popular with Forum Members:
Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download
The downside is that you make the pe recovery DVD and this involves a one off download of Windows WAIK (1.7GB unfortunately).

Note that even when you reduce the partition size you will not be able to use Windows imaging to reimage to the 250GB HDD. The size of the 500GB drive will still be in the MBR partition table and Windows will balk.

 

[whs]

thanks MJF,

So is that the only problem here the size of my target drive in my case ?,
can I just create a partition on my 500 gig drive to equal to my original 250 gig from which the image was created ??, this is sickening how much of BS a legitimate windows user have to go through to create a simple drive image....
Hope to sort this out soon...,

thanks for the help, looking forward to your reply.

Cheers,


Andy

That is the same with most (at least free) imaging programs. But it should be simple to shrink your 500GB partition to less than 250GB since you have only 160GB of data (unless that is the compressed number).

For that job you need the bootable CD of Partition Wizard (see on the left side of the webpage) because Disk Management won't do it.

And here is a tutorial in case you decide to use free Macrium - it is the best. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html?ltr=I

 

[Morph1]

I will look at the solution suggested above, however I ended up reinstalling windows 7 and all my software from scratch onto that 250 gig target drive, I wonder if Bill Gates could recover my lost time in small financial contribution lol....,
In the mean time I wanted to ask you guys if I had the exact identical drives in size would the system disk image app.
thats included into the windows 7 disk make a complete usable image / clone of my primary drive booting windows 7 and all my installed software including all my e-mails and files?? does the type of hard drive play a role ? what if the Primary drive was a WD drive and my target drive was Seagate Drive both 500 gigs would that matter ??
In this case I would buy another 250 gig drive and image that drive....

thanks again,


Andy

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'm not sure what you mean by "type of hard drive". The brand doesn't matter.

 

[Hanna 1]

Morph1
Please read about the differences between cloning and imaging in the following site

Cloning or Imaging a HDD

Regards

 

[whs]

Andy, No problem with identical drives - even from different makes as long as they are Sata. Even SSDs would qualify. But I warn you - the Windows7 imaging/restore can play all kind of acts on you. You would be a lot better off and a lot safer with free Macrium.

 

[mjf]

In the mean time I wanted to ask you guys if I had the exact identical drives in size would the system disk image app.
thats included into the windows 7 disk make a complete usable image / clone of my primary drive booting windows 7 and all my installed software including all my e-mails and files?? does the type of hard drive play a role ? what if the Primary drive was a WD drive and my target drive was Seagate Drive both 500 gigs would that matter ??


Andy

If the drive is the same size or larger the Windows imaging will work fine transferring to a new HDD. I've done it a number of times.
There is no fundamental problem in going from one make to another BUT one manufacturer's 500GB may not have exactly (down to the byte) as anothers. If the target manufacturers drive is a number of bytes less, then Windows will not reimage. I also think free Macrium would have issues. You need check for any slight size difference.

The term "cloning" is often used loosely. Strictly it is a bit for bit (or sector by sector if you like), disk to disk transfer. Imaging is a more sophisticated, faster and more flexible approach to achieve essentially the same thing. Imaging transfer uses intermediate image files which may have some compression as well. Unused space and the likes of pagefile is not transferred - there is no point!

 

[whs]

Unused space and the likes of pagefile is not transferred - there is no point!

Michael, This may lead to misunderstandings.

The unused spaces like the pagefile will reappear in the restored image. But for the image itself, they are being compressed. During restore, they are being decompressed.

 

[mjf]

Unused space and the likes of pagefile is not transferred - there is no point!

Michael, This may lead to misunderstandings.

The unused spaces like the pagefile will reappear in the restored image. But for the image itself, they are being compressed. During restore, they are being decompressed.

Yes that's right. Sorry if my wording could cause confusion. I meant the contents of the pagefile would not be imaged and transferred. You'll still get an allocated pagefile.sys at the size it was at the time of imaging.
To add - I have hibernation disabled on my SSD so when I reimage I don't get a hyberfile.sys created.

 

[Morph1]

thank you folks for all the help,
I will test the suggested solutions within this coming weekend...,
Just a few extra questions...

Now currently I installed fresh copy of windows 7 on that 250 gig drive...,
Now my size of all data on that drive is around 130 gigs, I got a spare 160 gig drive
and new 500 gig drive...,

Can I make the image copy onto the 160 gig drive and then do an image recovery on the new 500 gig drive, I am wondering about the unused sectors 500 gig partition oppose to the 250 gig drive partition...., what will happen with the unused space since the MBR will be cloned of a 250 gig drive... will I have an extra partition on the 500 gig target drive ? will I be able to merge the partition as one ??

and finally what would be the right method to create the image copy recovery,
the way I understand it this way :

1. Remove the volumes and Format both the 160 gig and 500 gig target drive..
2. Make an Image disk onto the 160 gig drive.
3. Do I make the 500 gig volume as active partition adding a drive letter ? or remove
the volume and let windows handle the format while imaging....
4. Disconnect my primary drive
5. Boot from dvdrom with windows 7 recovery mode
6. Enter recovery mode and select 160 gig image source drive
7. Image the drive onto the 500 gig drive.
8. Restart the comp, boot to bios assign the 500 gig drive as the primary drive
9. Boot of that drive to windows
10. Hopefully running imaged windows 7 copy of my new drive with all my programs

Is that the correct process??

thanks again,

Andy.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I think your plan is OK. I'm not sure about your step 3---you may not have to mark the 500 gig drive as active--Windows may do what needs to be done.

Storing the image file on the 160 gb drive is fine.

After the restore completes, if you happen to still have unallocated space or incorrectly sized partitions on the 500 GB drive, you can certainly make the necessary corrections with Windows Disk Management or with a tool such as Partition Wizard if necessary.