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Restoring to a smaller disk? RRS feed

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    Hello,

    It appears we can transfer from one system to another as long as the disk in the restore system is of equal or greater capacity.  You cannot transfer to a smaller disk even if the capacity of the backup is less than the restore disk.  For example, the backup system is 160 GB with 80 GB full.  We cannot restore to a system of 120 GB; we put a 250 GB and we can restore successfully.

    Any ideas if this is possible?

    Regards,
    Wednesday, August 26, 2009 2:22 AM

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    RE: kingslaye505

    Thanks.  Never thought of this nifty idea....  We use to use Paragon Software's DriveImage/Partition Magic to re-size partitions in the Windows NT era.  Never lost any data before.  Never had to do this for Windows 2xxx and above. 

    RE: Olaf Engelke

    Thanks.  We're familiar with this product.  We're using Windows XP SP3.

    Regards,

    • Marked as answer by trendsmb Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:53 PM
    Wednesday, August 26, 2009 7:57 PM

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    You're not able to restore to a smaller drive without some hackery because the server creates an image of the entire drives and restores the entire image, which includes free space.

    If you are really in need, you can try a back alley technique. I can't guarantee that this will work though and it may cause data loss.

    1. Download and burn Gparted
    2. Boot from the Gparted Live CD
    3. Resize the partition that Windows is installed on to be smaller than the drive you want to recover to
    4. Boot into Windows
    5. Reconfigure the backup settings to backup your newly resized partition
    6. Backup the partition
    7. Try to recover to the new disk

    Good Luck, be careful if you choose to do this. If you are inexperienced, or don't know what any of the above means, chances are you shouldn't attempt this.
    • Proposed as answer by kingslaye505 Wednesday, August 26, 2009 2:43 AM
    Wednesday, August 26, 2009 2:31 AM
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    Which version of Windows do you use?
    If Vista, you can also use disk management console to reduce the size of a volume somewhat.

    There are also different Windows applications (although most of them not freeware), which allow you to do the same.
    You might check Paragon Partition Manager Express for this.

    Best greetings from Germany
    Olaf
    Wednesday, August 26, 2009 1:48 PM
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    RE: kingslaye505

    Thanks.  Never thought of this nifty idea....  We use to use Paragon Software's DriveImage/Partition Magic to re-size partitions in the Windows NT era.  Never lost any data before.  Never had to do this for Windows 2xxx and above. 

    RE: Olaf Engelke

    Thanks.  We're familiar with this product.  We're using Windows XP SP3.

    Regards,

    • Marked as answer by trendsmb Wednesday, August 26, 2009 10:53 PM
    Wednesday, August 26, 2009 7:57 PM