Using Windows 7 Pro Image Clone just will not work HELP

[meridius]

Hi all

I am pulling my hair out here as i just can not restore a windows 7 pro image backup to a 128gb SSD.

I have a samsung f1 1tb drive which has a 48.7gb partiton and a 882gig partition. The windows boot drive c is the 48.7gb Partiton and the larger one is for stroage.

I have used windows 7 pro image clone and make an image of the C: partition of the drive which is 45gb full and have stored it on a usb drive.

Now i have formated the SSD drive as i have got windows 7 pro on there but theres far far to much work for me to get it back to the way it is on my samsung drive.

I followed this guide

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/7702/...-image-backup/

now where it says

In the next screen just click on Next…there are no other partitions in this instance so we don’t need to worry about excluding disks.

in the exclude menu i checked to see if the ssd was in there which it was and was unticked.

but when i get to the

The restore process will begin. It might take a few hours to restore everything depending on the size of the image and how much data there is. Provided there are no errors and the process completes successfully, your system will restart and the system should be restored.

it says can not find a drive to put the image restore on ?

I have tried disk part and it shows that there are 2 hard drives there one ssd on a sata and the other on a usb with the image on there.
I can not for the life of me get it to put the image clone on the ssd drive.

am i doing somthing wrong can anyone help.

I have even tried to format the ssd and it still wil not work

please please help me here

thanks

 

[MC_K7]

Since you already spent a lot of time on this, I would recommend to install Windows from scratch instead of trying to clone an existing drive. With a "clean installation" of Windows everything will run better and faster, the drawback is that you will need to reinstall your software and reconfigure a lot of stuff but it's worth it in the end. Otherwise if that's not an option for you, try with another software. Acronis Disk Director is one of the best and doesn't cost much.

 

[RetiredChief]

Your problem is that it is tring to clone the Small OS partition and The MBR to inclued the Larger partition.

Down load EASYUS (Freebee) to migrate your just your OS to the SSD.
http://www.todo-backup.com/home/home-backup.htm

 

[meridius]

thanks for the help.

dont want to do a clean install to much work.

Q1 so what your saying is that windows 7 can not install an image of 45gb data max that is installed on a 50gb partition drive which is smaller than the 128gb drive I am trying to put it on ? so does windows still think both partitons are as one and still thinks its 1tb instead of 50gb ?

Q2 so what happens if you if you put a 2tb drive in would it make a 50gb partition install the image on there and make a 950gb parttiton and then there would be another partition of 1tb of unalocated space ?

Q3 so if you backup a single drive of 64gb you can restore it on a sinlge 64gb drive without problems but what happens if you use a 128gb drive would it have 2 partitons then ? or just one 128gb partition with free space ?

Q4 so could i put another 1tb drive in there and then restore it ? on a 128gb partition that i made as its still a 1tb drive and use the 2nd partition as storage meaning i have extened the c partiton ?

thanks

 

[RetiredChief]

1) When going from an HDD -> SSD a Clean Install is recommended over a "Clone"
.. A clone is a sector by sector copy. Even thoe you are only cloning the OS partition the clone will include the partitioning info for the WHOLE drive, for that reason you can NOT clone a Larger HD to a Smaller HD. Vs versa is OK.
.. A clone WILL not ENABLE trim, nor will it correctly align the partiton for an SSD.

What you want is to MIGRATE the OS partition to the New SSD, Using a program that will also properly align the Partition and Enable trim. Reason I recommend EASYUS. Personnaly I prefer EZ-Gig-II (or IV), but that rquires purchasing a speacial SATA -> USB cable (about $18 from New egg).

 

[unksol]

Doesn't really matter.what you WANT to do. You SHOULD do a clean install. There's no reason not to. Its quick for 7, and flies on an SSD

 

[meridius]

thanks.

Q1 so its not an image of the drive is more of a clone of the drive.

so forget about a ssd drive as it seems a fresh install is the way to go or bye a program that lets you image a drive to a smaller one..

Q2 so what if i was to get another 1tb drive and create a 100gb partition as the one i have now on my 1tb is 50gb partiton would it be able to clone to that drive and that means i will have 50gb free space as its now a 100gb partition with the 50gb image installed don there

Q3 so if you installed windows on a 3tb drive but have a 100gb partiton on there and you used windows image clone you could not install it on a 2tb hard drive only a 3tb or 4tb drive. so the hihger the drive the harder it is to clone a drive and put it on a smaller drive unless you use a 3rd party backup tool.

cheers

 

[RetiredChief]

The difference is in "Clone" vs "Migration" The term Cloning is sometimes misused and really refers to Migrating.
True clone can only be accompliched on a equal or larger target HDD.

Once you have Migrated, Or Cloned the OS from one HDD to another you can always Adjust the size of the "C" partition By using windows 7 expand (or Shrink) from Windows Disk management. So you cloned (or Migraded) a 50 Gig partition to a Larger Drive, and the remainder of the Disk is Unallocated. You can then expand the "C" partition to your desired size of 100 gigs.

 

[meridius]

tried expanding the drive but windows does not allow it on the c boot drive i shrinked my 2nd partition to give me 50gig of unallocated space but the C: drive has the expand greyed out as your not allowed to expand that.

its a right pain in the ass i can nto clone my 50gig partiton to a 128gb ssd dive and i can not expand my c drive from my other partition.

i only have 2gb left and i am running out of space i just dont know what to do for the best as reinstall i out of the question.

cheers