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new hard drive installed but used a backup that did not include the recovery partion

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I have a vista laptop (vista home premium) and I have been creating backups with Acronis 2009 on that laptop. Well about a month or so ago, the hard drive died. I got a new hard drive, installed it and used acronis to restore the computer to the way it was.
Unfortunately, I picked a backup that was made without the D: drive / recovery partition. The backup that I used was only made of the C: drive. I use to make all of my backups included both the c and d drives but since this hard drive was fairly new (and like a fool I had recently been only making backups of the c drive).

Anyway, I do have a backup that includes the d / recovery drive on it and I did install the old / bad drive into an external closure and tested it. The d / recovery drive is good and there are absolutely problems with it. It is the c: drive that has errors on it.

When I go to computer management it does show Partition_1 (C:) and on the bottom half is says Disk 0 Partition_1 (C:) 220.95 GB NTFS and there is the 11.94GB unallocated space (which is where the recovery drive should be)

Is there any way to just reinstall the recovery drive or to do a recovery to a backup that has both the c and d (recovery) drives on it so that the recovery drive is also there? Then just do a restore of the c drive to a new backup to bring the c drive back to where it is now?
Thanks So Very Much

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If there is space on the drive you should be able to restore just a partition. You might need to shrink the C partition first before putting the recovery partition on the hdisk.

I just realized that in my initial post it should say that when I plugged in the hard drive that has the problems with it and tested just the recovery part of the drive - No problems were found with that partition, it is just the c drive (partition) that has issues.

When I did install the new hard drive and then used the wrong backup (which only had the c drive on it) there was unallocated space showing when I went to my computer>manage>disk management and that unallocated space is the same size as where the d (recovery) drive should be.

So I don't think that I would need to shrink the c partition any. However, how would I go about taking that d (recovery drive) and installing it into that unallocated space.

I did think about trying to wipe the hard drive and start over and then use a backup that I am sure has both the c & d drives on it and then taking a new backup that is of just the c drive and recover/restore that. But I am not sure if that will work or if doing that will wipe out the recovery drive since it is not on the current / most recent backup.

I have attached a copy of what I see when I look at computer management.
The unallocated space is where the d (recovery drive) should be.

I don't have a problem with wiping the drive and starting over and using a backup that has the recovery drive on it, but can I then use the most current backup that is of just the c drive and do the same thing or will that wipe out the drive and put me right back where I am now? Is there a way to keep that recovery partition from the older backup and then just restore the c drive with the most up to date copy I have?

Thanks So Very Much

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I just came across this information regarding resizing partitions during a restore at https://kb.acronis.com/content/2770

Would this also apply if I were to wipe the drive, start over with the old backup that has both the c and d drives on it and then restart the computer with the disk still in the dvd drive and the follow the steps at that link for "Resizing all or separate partitions manually during restore:" and then Select a single partition and follow through the wizard. " but ignore the part when it says "You will get a Restored Partition Size option, which you can adjust." ?

Thanks Again

If there is unallocated space the size of the need partiton, then you should be able to restore the partition, doing a partition restore to the unallocated. Use the backup with the diseied partitin and restore that one partition only, manually, to the unallocated space.

you had suggested that "If there is space on the drive you should be able to restore just a partition. You might need to shrink the C partition first before putting the recovery partition on the hdisk."

I can create an acronis backup of the recovery drive from the original hard disk since that part of the drive passed all the tests and there are no problems with it and then use that to restore the recovery partition to the space that is currently listed as unallocated. I am just not sure how to put that recovery part into that unallocated space (which is the size that it should be for that recovery drive). The actual size of the unallocated space if 11.94 GB and the size of the recovery drive is 5.72GB. I have the old hard drive in an external and when I plug that it I can see both the recovery drive as well as the partition that has the problems on it.

As I said, I just don't know to go about getting that recovery drive onto the unallocated space (create a backup of just that drive with acronis and then someone install it to that unallocated space) or use the old backup that does have the recovery drive on it and put that into the unallocated space.

I could just start over and use the old backup that has both partitions on it but then I am not sure how to just restore the c drive to where I am now without wiping out the recovery drive. Can I just recover the c drive to the up to date backup after using the older backup.

You may know of a better way than I would to do this (if in fact it can even be done) I guess I am just sort of "thinking out loud" as to what I think that might be possibilities.

Again, Thanks for any and all suggestions.

If you manually restore, you can set the size for each partition. Select only the partition you want to restore.

When you backup a drive, you get all the partitions in the backup.

when you restore, you don't have to restore the disk; yu can restore only selected partitions. That's what you want to do.

I do have an older backup that has both the c & d drive on it - so would I start the pc with the acronis disk in the dvd drive and is there an option for a manual restore?

I did figure out how to see what is included in the backup by selecting explore I can see the c drive and d(recovery) drive. I take that backup and only select the d / recovery portion of that backup and restore that part only. Is that correct? Are there steps somewhere that I can follow for doing a manual restore so that I am sure I am doing this correctly and done screw it up

You should refer to the user guide. IF that stumps you, try Grover's collection of tips, usually listed onthe left hand side of the forum web page.

user guides for various elder versions.
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/legacy.html

Thanks for those links - I greatly appreciate it. Will review those files before going any further. Thanks Again, I really do appreciate the help (more than you can possibly know)