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Recover full/incremental backup image from 500GB SATA to 128GB SSD with Rescue Media

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Hi all, As per title. - I first created a full backup of the 500GB SATA drive (containing Windows 10 OEM install) using the Rescue Media. Backup size = +/-170GB - I then performed a Windows 10 Reset in order to revert to the factory image and save space. - Using the Rescue Media, I performed an incremental backup. Backup size = +/-15GB (which corresponds nicely to the size of a "clean" Windows 10 pre-install) - I then switched the 500GB SATA with a 128GB SSD (Samsung EVO 840) So far, so good. However, recovery from the full OR incremental backup image doesn't work as the 128GB SSD (MBR partition layout, unallocated space) is greyed out in the Recovery location window when selecting a FULL image recovery. When selecting all partitions, except "MBR Track 0", I can point the "System Reserved" to the unallocated space on the SSD. But the other partitions (Windows and "Recovery Partition") cannot be mapped to the SSD as it is greyed out. When only selecting the Windows partition for recovery, the SSD is greyed out. Manually partitioning the 128GB SSD with the "Add disk" according to the partitioning on the 500GB SATA disk leads to the same result: I can only locate the first partition ("System Reserved"), not the others (destination partitions greyed out). Thanks in advance for useful ideas and a possible solution.

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Pieter, welcome to these public User Forums.

When you make an Incremental backup image, this is always based upon the initial Full backup that preceded it, so your circa 170GB Full backup plus your 15GB Incremental backup cannot be used independently to recover the backup to a disk with only 128GB space available.

If you make a new Full backup of your reset Windows 10 drive, you should be able to recover that to the 128GB SSD assuming that the size of data shown on the source drive will fit on the smaller drive.

Thanks Steve for the welcome and your reply.

 

I followed your advise but ended up with the exact same results: Still couldn't recover (full disk or partial recovery) as the target disk remains greyed out.

 

I tried cloning the disk, which did work after 2 tries. During the first try, the partition containing the Windows installation was marked with a red cross and indicated a capacity of several TB's (!!). I performed a disk check on another computer, which found & fixed errors on the disk. I was able to clone the SATA HDD to the new SSD.

 

I wonder if the disk errors which didn't show during the full & incremental backup somehow caused the issue.

 

Either way, I now have a functioning Windows, so all is good. Thanks again.

Pieter, disk errors will impact on either cloning or backup / recovery actions, as they can result in ATI switching to using sector-by-sector mode of operation, which in essence means that all used sectors are included giving a much bigger size requirement.

Good to read that you have now got a working Windows OS again, so that is the most important point here!