After cloning HDD, restoration fails
I cloned my system (Win7 Ultimate) from a 320gb internal HDD onto a 500gb USB external drive prior to installing a new 500gb drive into my laptop (HP Pavilion series) using the Acronis Boot CD to do so. I was successful in restoring the original cloned system onto the new 500gb internal drive. Unfortunately that 500gb internal drive started failing within 24 hours, so I swapped it out for the original 320gb internal. I will be getting a replacement for the dud 500gb, but don't know long it will take and I have urgent work that needs to be done. I really don't want to spend more hours reinstalling software and files onto a disk that will be removed as soon as my replacement arrives.
When I tried to restore my cloned system from the USB 500gb external drive to the 320gb internal, I got a "cloning failed" error. I had already reformatted the original 320gb internal disk (damn!!). What do I do now? Would it work if I placed the 320gb in an external enclosure and cloned back to it that way? The 500gb drive had not been partitioned before I started - would I succeed if I divide it into 2 partitions with the first partition being set around 320gb? I'm willing to try any suggestions that are going to be relatively swift......
This is the first time I have used Acronis True Image Home 2010.
Thanks.
regards
Pat. Mitchell

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Pat, when you clone a drive the target has to be the same size or larger, thus you cannot go from the 500GB to the 320GB. ThomasJK has a great suggestion however you "may" encounter an issue with the BOOTMGR, if you do then see my post at http://forum.acronis.com/forum/10587 and see if helps you.
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Are we talking clonging or backing up?
Instead of cloning you should be able to make a backup and restore that to a diff size drive.
At a minimum, I'd make a backup onto a spare drdive just to ensure that I'd could go back to the beginning, so to speak. Consider getting another external drive to use to store multiple backups.
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