Ralf_CT Posted February 22, 2016 Report Share Posted February 22, 2016 I'm currently busy with a machine where a 1TB drive was partitioned into three approximately 330GB partitions. "C" became full and an adjacent partition was deleted so that the space could be allocated to "C" 1. Since the deleted partition was on the LEFT of "C", allocating this unpartitioned space to "C" proved impossible from within Windows 7 as this only allows merging with partitions to the RIGHT of "C" ... and then also not always. 2. The next option was to do a Retrospect Disaster Recovery onto a 'test' 500GB drive, just to check if all's well. I could then delete existing "C" completely, restore the backup onto a resized partition and create a second partition once the computer reboots. This also proved impossible: apparently the restore drive has to match the physical size of the entire drive (not just the partition) from which "C" was backed up. 3. I then tried "restoring an entire volume" onto the 500GB drive from within Retrospect in Windows 7. This also proved impossible ... the computer wouldn't boot from the restored drive. Tried re-creating the MBR etc. from the System Repair disc, but still no booting PC. Tried the System Repair disk ... still no luck. My last option is to load Windows 7 onto the 500GB drive, and then restore the Retrospect backup. This should boot up. If yes, then I can safely delete the 1TB drive and restore the backup onto a suitably-sized partition ("2" above should then not be a problem). All this work simply to create more space for "C"! If I had known the headache this would cause I would simply have bought Acronis Disk Director 12 and resized, merged, shifted the partitions as required (unfortunately Powerquest Partition Magic is no longer supported - this software was literally 'magic'). Comments would be welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralf_CT Posted February 22, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 22, 2016 My last option is to load Windows 7 onto the 500GB drive, and then restore the Retrospect backup. This should boot up. If yes, then I can safely delete the 1TB drive and restore the backup onto a suitably-sized partition ("2" above should then not be a problem). No, the above didn't work either. Restoring over a fresh install (even if it is the same version of Windows 7 with the same Product Key) doesn't work. It seems the only option will be to restore to another 1TB drive, or use disk partitioning software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scillonian Posted February 22, 2016 Report Share Posted February 22, 2016 (edited) Which version of Retrospect are you using? The primary purpose of Disaster Recovery is to restore the system 'as is' so you will need a new disk of at least the same size as the old disk. With later versions of Retrospect Disaster Recovery has become more reliable. Before Retrospect 8.x I found it very hit and miss. The live restore to a fresh install of Windows 7 should have worked. What was your exact workflow and what error did you get? Getting Windows 7 (and later) to boot after replacing a disk can sometimes require some command line foo to get things working again, particularly on EFI based hardware. (As well as having the disk setup correct there also need to be the correct entries in the EFI.) WARNING: Only try the following if you are familiar with Linux. Two options exist if you can use Linux, both of which I have used successfully. One could be to boot the machine using a Linux Live CD and then use GParted to move the desired partition to the left and then use Windows later to expand it to the right. The other could be to use Clonezilla to clone the desired partition to an image stored on another disk, delete the partition then create a new one in the space 'to the left' of exactly the same size, use Clonezilla to restore the image to the new partition and then use Windows to expand the partition. The first boot after doing this may take considerably longer than normal. Note that after you expand the volume Retrospect will see it as different volume from the original. Edited February 22, 2016 by Scillonian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralf_CT Posted February 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2016 The live restore to a fresh install of Windows 7 should have worked. What was your exact workflow and what error did you get? Note that after you expand the volume Retrospect will see it as different volume from the original. The live restore to a fresh install of Windows 7 failed with +-250GB of the +-280GB still needing to be copied. It ran for 30-odd seconds and stopped, something about a 1001 error. I ended up buying Acronis Disk Director 12: resizing the partition took +-3 minutes. I then swopped the "C" and "D" partitions on the same drive, placing one in front, and the other at the back ... this was carried out in 'DOS' after a reboot, it took +-1.5 hours due to the volume size but the machine then re-booted without any issues. Re "Retrospect will see the new resized volume as a different volume" above, is the backup I did before the resizing useless for a prospective Disaster Recovery? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scillonian Posted February 24, 2016 Report Share Posted February 24, 2016 Error '-1001 unknown Windows OS error' means Windows returned an error code to Retrospect that it does no know. You could try looking in the Windows Event Logs to see if there any errors recorded there at the time of the attempted restore that might give some indication of what failed. Trying to determine why the restore failed may help you to take steps to ensure a restore will work in the future. (Software conflicts, hardware failures, etc.) To perform a Disaster Recovery restore of the resized volume you will first need a backup of that volume. However the next backup you make of the volume will record the size changes. If you are lucky not too many of the files will have been affected by the resize so the next incremental backup will not be too large. (Changes on a volume's file system can sometime cause changes to the metadata associated with a file and result in Retrospect seeing the file as having changed even if the file contents are unchanged.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
x509 Posted February 29, 2016 Report Share Posted February 29, 2016 I was upset to read this thread, because I had always assumed that I could restore to dissimilar hardware, as long as the new partition was at least as big as the old partition regardless of the total size of the target drive. Obviously this is not the case. So can someone summarize what is required for a successful restore operation? x509 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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