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Questions about restoring to a smaller partition

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I've used Ghost for years and have it installed on multiple computers, but due to some concerns with the latest version of Ghost, I recently purchased True Image Home 2009.  I have it installed on one computer and have done a few backups, but have not tested the recovery process with it yet.

Ghost only creates and restores sector-by-sector images of the entire drive--or more accurately, of the entire drive up to the last sector containing data.  This can result in a large percentage of a system image file's space containing empty sectors--a waste of time and system image space during the backup process, plus it makes it difficult (sometimes impossible) to restore the image to a smaller partition, even though a large percentage of the image is just empty sectors. 

I understand True Image can be set to work the same as Ghost or... can be set to backup only those sectors containing data.  If that's true, the second option would seem to have a definite speed advantage as well as make it possible to restore to a partition size no larger than needed to hold the amount of actual data in the system image.

Assuming TI Home 2009 does offer the option to backup only the sectors with data, I have four questions.

1)  Would someone be able to list the backup settings used to backup just the sectors with data?
2)  Can someone explain what settings are used to create the desired partition size for the partition created by the restore process.  I'm particularly interested in making a smaller partition, but assume the process would be the same whether increasing or decreasing the size.
3)  What is the default backup method used by TI (Sector-by-sector, or just sectors with data)?
4)  What is the default partition sizing approach used by TI when restoring from a system image?

Thanks in advance for any help that can be provided !

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Rick Ausdahl wrote:
...Assuming TI Home 2009 does offer the option to backup only the sectors with data, I have four questions.

1)  Would someone be able to list the backup settings used to backup just the sectors with data?

This is the default backup method. TI will only revert to doing a sector-by-sector backup when you specify that as an option, or when backing up a file system that is not on the supported file system list, or when the file system is supported but is damaged.

Rick Ausdahl wrote:
2)  Can someone explain what settings are used to create the desired partition size for the partition created by the restore process.  I'm particularly interested in making a smaller partition, but assume the process would be the same whether increasing or decreasing the size.

No setting is necessary. By default the output will be a compressed image file that consists of the used sectors on the partition.

Rick Ausdahl wrote:
3)  What is the default backup method used by TI (Sector-by-sector, or just sectors with data)?

Just sectors with data.

Rick Ausdahl wrote:
4)  What is the default partition sizing approach used by TI when restoring from a system image?

If restoring to an existing partition, TI will attempt to fill the partition by default. But you can resize smaller at the time of restore by moving a slider on a graphical partition display. If restoring to unallocated space, you specify the desired size of the partition during the restore process.

Check out the sticky post by GroverH for some illustrated guides to TI. You can see some of the backup and restore wizard screens in the guides, which may provide additional information to you.

Mark,

Thanks for your reply. I apologize for not responding sooner but I haven't had a chance to get on the net for a couple of days.

Well, it certainly sounds like TI is more flexible and user friendly than Ghost. I'll definitely be giving it a harder look. Ghost has saved my "sit-upon" more than once, and for that I'm grateful--but it doesn't seem to be trying very hard to compete these days feature wise.

I would like to clarify that in the second question of my initial post, I was referring to the size of a "restored" partition--e.g. a partition created by the recovery step after a system or hardware failure. But in your response, I "think" you were referring to the size of an image file created by the backup step. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But... your answer to my question #4 answered both questions 2 and 4, so I'm good to go!

Thanks again for your help!

Rick