System Image Recovery

How do I delete the backup images?

Thanks in advance

Hi,

It is time to upgrade the computer and I ran into a problem restoring an image to a new SDD on win7 ultimate x86. It get a message saying no suitable disk to restore to.

Here is the history of what I have tried:

Original setup:

Disk 0: (1.0 TB)
partition C: (OS - 70GB)
partition D: (data -860 GB)
Disk 1: (1.0TB)
partition E: (data - 930 GB)

Everything works fine.

New hardware added: 2.0TB HDD, 60GB SSD

new hardware setup

Disk 0: (1.0 TB)
partition C: (OS - 70GB)
partition D: (data -860 GB)
Disk 1: (1.0TB)
partition E: (data - 930 GB)
Disk 2 : (2.0 TB)
partition F: (data 1.8 TB)
Disk 3: (60GB)
partition G: (data 60GB)

everything works

now to prep for OS migration from disk 0 to disk 3, I did the following

1. shrank partition c: from 70GB to 50GB
2. copied partition d: to partition f:
3. deleted partition d:
4. reassigned partition f: as d:

everything works - setup is as follows:

Disk 0: (1.0 TB)
partition C: (OS - 50GB)
unallocated 880 GB)
Disk 1: (1.0TB)
partition E: (data - 930 GB)
Disk 2 : (2.0 TB)
partition D: (data 1.8 TB)
Disk 3: (60GB)
partition G: (data 60GB)

I then created a system image of Disk 0 on partition D (Disk 2)

I want to restore this image to Disk 3

First attempt - reboot into recovery environment (ok)
select image to restore from (ok)
exclude disk 0 (ok)
exclude disk 1 (ok)
disk 2 is automaticaly excluded as it contains the image

click ok to restore - get message saying no suitable disk has been found.

Next attempt - physically disconnect disk 0 and 1 and retry - same result.

My understanding is that this should work as the the partition on the original drive is smaller than the size of the destination drive and the rest of the original drive was not allocated.

Any ideas,

Mark

I found a solution to my problem,

In the details of the error message (no suitable drives found), they mention USB drives as not suitable... Therefore, I extented this logic to AHCI Sata drives (hot swappable) and turned off AHCI in my bios.

I tried the restore and it worked.

I rebooted and reenabled AHCI. All works. Windows disk score 5.5->7.7

All is good.


Mtp

mtp said:

Hi,

It is time to upgrade the computer and I ran into a problem restoring an image to a new SDD on win7 ultimate x86. It get a message saying no suitable disk to restore to.

Here is the history of what I have tried:

Original setup:

Disk 0: (1.0 TB)
partition C: (OS - 70GB)
partition D: (data -860 GB)
Disk 1: (1.0TB)
partition E: (data - 930 GB)

Everything works fine.

New hardware added: 2.0TB HDD, 60GB SSD

new hardware setup

Disk 0: (1.0 TB)
partition C: (OS - 70GB)
partition D: (data -860 GB)
Disk 1: (1.0TB)
partition E: (data - 930 GB)
Disk 2 : (2.0 TB)
partition F: (data 1.8 TB)
Disk 3: (60GB)
partition G: (data 60GB)

everything works

now to prep for OS migration from disk 0 to disk 3, I did the following

1. shrank partition c: from 70GB to 50GB
2. copied partition d: to partition f:
3. deleted partition d:
4. reassigned partition f: as d:

everything works - setup is as follows:

Disk 0: (1.0 TB)
partition C: (OS - 50GB)
unallocated 880 GB)
Disk 1: (1.0TB)
partition E: (data - 930 GB)
Disk 2 : (2.0 TB)
partition D: (data 1.8 TB)
Disk 3: (60GB)
partition G: (data 60GB)

I then created a system image of Disk 0 on partition D (Disk 2)

I want to restore this image to Disk 3

First attempt - reboot into recovery environment (ok)
select image to restore from (ok)
exclude disk 0 (ok)
exclude disk 1 (ok)
disk 2 is automaticaly excluded as it contains the image

click ok to restore - get message saying no suitable disk has been found.

Next attempt - physically disconnect disk 0 and 1 and retry - same result.

My understanding is that this should work as the the partition on the original drive is smaller than the size of the destination drive and the rest of the original drive was not allocated.

Any ideas,

Mark

I've got a problem here.. I have the system image stored on the external USB-HDD, but when I get to step 5 I see the empty table!! What is the problem with this? It seems like the PC doesnot search for the image or doesnot see the HDD at all.. Any suggestions?

NightSeeker,

Did you perhaps rename the System Image folder?

If yes, then rename back to WindowsImageBackup.

Hi - Brink, thanks for another complete and thorough walkthrough BUT... I also wanted to transfer an image of W7Ux64 from a 320GB drive that is getting a bit tight to a newly-freed-up 750GB. I get most of the way through, it seems as if the recovery is going to happen... and then I get "The system image restore failed. No disk that can be used for recovering the system disk can be found." The thing is, I also tried using Acronis True Image. This s e e m s to actually be working, but doesn't actually overwrite the brand new, sacrificial victim installation of the OS I put on the big drive (as I couldn't restore to a bare drive, I thought I'd try that). Am I really going to have to replicate the original drive size and then footle about in Disk Management? Thanks :)

I'm not Brink, but:

You need to "prepare" the new HDD.

Use the preparation portion of following link. The main thing this will do is clean the disk, format the disc, and make the partition Active.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

karlsnooks said:

I'm not Brink, but:

You need to "prepare" the new HDD.

Use the preparation portion of following link. The main thing this will do is clean the disk, format the disc, and make the partition Active.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

karlsnooks - thanks very much and I'm definitely going to go through the info you've kindly provided - but I'm afraid I have just hung my head and slunk away, defeated, towards a fearful and uncertain tomorrow. Also, I just opted to redistribute the files more logically over my disks (now a 320GB, a 750, and a 1TB). But I will never be defeated, and when I rise again, puny human insects, I will succeed

I went through this, but now have a problem...

I created a system image using W7 on my laptop's 60 gb drive, and stored it on an external drive. I then swapped out the 60 gb drive with a 120 gb drive (which contained an old XP install). I used my Windows 7 installation disk to boot up, and selected Repair Your Computer...went through the steps in this tutorial, and got the image restored to the larger drive....

However, on the restored drive, it's showing the capacity is 55.8 gb. I went into Admin tools and checked the Drive Management...my 120 gb drive has been split into two partitions (originally it only had one), and the second one says Unallocated 55 gb (or so).

Is there a way to fix it to be one partition, within Windows 7? Or do I need to re-do the image restore? I'd like to avoid having to use a third party program. Oh also, not sure if this is related, but in the tutorial, Step 6, selecting "Format and Repartition Disks"...when I got to that window, that box was already check-marked, but it was grayed out (so I couldn't uncheck it). I didn't click on any other buttons in that window, or change anything.