Hi all. So for ages and ages I've disabled Windows Restore (or System restore) and used Acronis. However, I need to ditch Acronis for something else for a few reasons really. 1. It won't boot the recovery media on my PC. This has only happened since I switched to AM3+ and whilst odd is a deal breaker. 2. It refuses to clone a drive image to a smaller drive. Now 1 has obviously put me right off, but 2 is a small issue.. Basically I dug out an old SATA 1 80gb drive to install my 8 install on (I can't format or bugger around with any of my 500gb drives) and I want to clone it to a 60gb drive. The install is kicking in at around 30gb or so and I have a 60gb SSD on route. Thus, Acronis ain't gonna work and I need something that doesn't discriminate when it comes to drive size (like overall drive size and not how much data you want to clone, if that makes any sense). I can always just reinstall 8 over again onto the SSD (I'd lose around 7 hours tinker time,mind) but the more alarming issue is that I need a cloning app any way given my hatred of System Restore (viruses for example infect all of the restore points, it bloats your main Windows drive, I prefer having an 'offboard' image on a drive that is disconnected etc, etc repeat ad nauseum). Thanks !
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-apps/five-free-and-reliable-cloning-tools/ I have used Clonezilla before and it worked a treat.
the only reason I haven't recommended hdclone this time is because the free version can't be use to clone to a smaller drive, only the paid for versions can do that.
It's a pity Acronis isn't serving you well, I've been using ATI on all of my own machines for about 3 years now and also use it on a dedicated cloning machine in the workshop. No issues whatsoever, although I have no AM3 systems. It's never let me down and I can clone a drive image to a smaller drive, provided the used space on the larger drive doesn't exceed a certain percentage of the smaller drives capacity of course. I also hate System Restore. Who in their right mind would use it?!
did you do a defrag before you took the image, as if acronis works like most other tools which do image based backups you will need a drive as large as the last written bit on the hard drive, so while you might only be using 40GB if the last bit is at the 65GB line it will read that you need a 65GB drive as the smallest it will shrink it down to?
Partition Wizard Home Edition 7.0 off Hirens Boot CD 15.0. I've moved system partitions off 1TB drives to 60GB SSD's using it. Works perfectly every time and only moved the space used. Once do you can then tell it to expand to fill the disk if you like. <3 Hirens.
By the sounds of it the OP made a Sector-By-Sector Backup, This image will contain not only sectors with data but also sectors that are empty. AFAIK Sector-By-Sector Backup's wont restore to smaller drives or allow you to change the partition size/layout in anyway during a restore. When making a image of a drive %99.9 of people only need to make a normal image/backup. To save space it only copies the data, partition layout, and MBR. Ignoring the empty sectors and pagefile. As for not being able to boot from the recovery media, without knowing details of any error messages and the like it would be difficult to know the cause. Although i doubt it would be a problem with Acronis as its one of the most feature rich Imaging programs you can get (imho)
It isn't Acronis no it's just something to do with the board. It doesn't even try to read the CD in there it just skips it and goes into Windows, ignoring the DVD drive completely.
Have you tried changing the boot priorities in the BIOS Change it so CD/DVD is listed first, then if you have a bootable CD in the drive it should ask you to press any key to boot from CD.
Not usre if this is what you are after but I would just make an optimal install with theprograms you are definatly going to use pluse lan driver or wifi driver, yes leave out all over drives just have a txt file with the weblink as you will want to use up to date drivers. once you have the image. just Format and re image as needed. I use the freeware xxxclone for that. Nothing fancy just barebones that works every time. if my other drive is infected Linux live disk with windows antivirus and anti trogen works really well.
