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Recover partition backup to a new hard disk that is smaller than the original hard disk

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Original hard disk was 1 TB . Going to replace with a new 500GB hard disk (same connectors). The image backups were of course created on the 1 TB disk. In reading the Acronis User Manual and especially after reading the article written by GroverH titled "Restore a TIH2012 Backup to a larger or smaller disk", both state that this type of restoration is more complicated than restoring to a disk of the same size. The User Manual says it will explain later on in the manual how to restore to a different size disk...I never found that explanation. The article by GroverH is pretty straight forward and easy to understand, but it is also written for the 2012 version. I have version 2013.

My question is this - Are all the steps outlined in the GroverH article really necessary to restore to a smaller disk? Do I really have to (using Acronis Boot CD) create partitions on the new drive with correct names, sizes, and format each partition to the correct file system type(FAT,NTFS,etc) prior to restoring each partition one at a time? I was only using a total (all partitions combined) of 162 GB on the 1 TB disk being replaced so the partition images will definitely fit on the new 500 GB disk. Do I really have to make sure the sequence of the partitions are in the correct order etc, etc.?

Since True Image 2013 is capable of restoring all partitions on an image backup (in one pass) to a blank disk of the same size, it seems like it should be capable of figuring out that my backup image (162 GB) will fit on my smaller drive (500 GB) and allow me to also restore all partitions (in one pass) to a blank disk. Can True Image 2013 do that OR do I really have to go through all the laborious steps outlined in the GroverH article?

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I have essentially the same issue as Daniel, and this is now a few years later and I had a problem even after putting the backed up drive on a new partition of a backup USB drive.  After I repartitioned to the lower size, I went to move it to the new drive and got the message "Unsuportted".  That is the key point, but the first try dropped me back the information that the move could not be completed because of some disk error, and stated that I should run a disk check.  I did that (chkdisk - nb: /f/v commands unuseable before readonly attribute removed [after chkdisk /f/v worked I reverted the status]); happily returning to Acronis Disk Director and issuing the move command, the "Unsupported" pops up and gives no hint as to WHY...  Still working on the problem with aggravation about having upgraded yesterday from ADD 2012 from ADD 2010, and thinking that Acronis must have encountered both the onerous issues before now and worked out solutions - perhaps they are a bit thorny given the hardware variables, but perhaps with the advent of Windows 10, we won't need to wait [ 4 YEARS and counting ] to ride over these bumps in the road !!

 

Richard

Richard, sorry but I do not understand what you are attempting to do here?

This forum is for obsolete Acronis True Image products but you are mentioning using Acronis Disk Director which is not a backup product?

I would recommend opening your own topic in the Acronis Disk Director Forum and providing more details of exactly what you are trying to do so that the folks in that forum can try to assist you in resolving this issue.