Restore not possible, partition size too big (excluded directories)

Thorsten, I believe that the problem here is that even though you have excluded the 240GB folder, the original drive size is still 300GB and so the backup image reflects that this was the size even though the actual backup file was only 60GB in size.

I believe that you would need to move the 240GB folder from the source drive then shrink it before taking a backup, then restore that shrunken partition to the smaller drive.  You should be able to do this with ATIH 2014.  The same restriction would apply to later versions as far as I am aware.

If the source partition only has files and folders, i.e. is not a Windows OS partition, then you could just restore the files & folders from the backup to the smaller drive, but if this is a Windows OS partition, then than would never work as all system programs and files would be unusable if restored in that way.

Thank you for your proposal, but in the meantime I found out (i. e. remembered) a much more elegant solution.

1. convert the .tib file with the large partition to a .vhd image format (convert to "Windows Backup") within True Image (extras and tools menu)

2. mount the VHD in Windows Disk Management

3. Shrink the partition with Windows Disk Management (or do it with diskpart if you like it more uncomfortable). The final partition size has to be smaller than the target partition, of course.

4. unmount the VHD

5. add the VHD to the backup list in True Image and restore the shrinked partition to the target partition

That's it. Why isn't there any hint in the manual for a problem like this? I think I am not the only one who experienced such an issue. I assume that this way is not even described in Grover's big manual collection...

BTW Would be perfect if one could shrink partitions in the tib file instead of converting to vhd first.

BTW2 Does this problem still exists in ATI 2017?

Thorsten

Thorsten, glad that you have found a method that works for you.

The ability to convert images to VHD files was removed after ATIH 2014 as Microsoft changed from creating VHD to VHDX in later versions of Windows.

With ATIH 2017 (and other versions) you have two methods of restoring a backup image - one is doing so as a full disk restore, but the second is doing it as a partition restore where you can specify the individual partition sizes.

See the ATIH 2017 User Guide:  Partition properties information but this does require that the application will offer the target drive as available to be selected in order to do the resizing, so you could still hit the same initial problem of the disk being greyed out / not available.

Steve Smith wrote:

The ability to convert images to VHD files was removed after ATIH 2014 as Microsoft changed from creating VHD to VHDX in later versions of Windows.

Steve, thanks for the information. It's strange that Acronis removed the VHD converting function. Microsoft offers both formats: VHD and VHDX. VHDX is the newer one, but the older format can still be used. Do you know other tools which are able to convert a TIB to a VHD(X)?

But anyway: something like this is not acceptable for an imaging program. I am a customer of ATI since 10 years, but problems like this are driving me nuts. For example: I had to transfer a 1 TB partition of a laptop to a smaller 250 GB SSD when the original harddisk crashed. I excluded many data in the partition backups (the image had a size of about 60 GB), and I was sure that there won't be a problem during a portential restore process. Of course, I had to do it the same way as described above (it was one year ago so I did not remember the procedure immediately). 

Acronis is capable of automatically resizing partitions when restoring or cloning drives, and you can also do this manually too.

I have certainly restored disk backups to smaller drives in the recent past but I have not needed to exclude anything other than the normal set of exclusions with the application settings, i.e. pagefile, swapfile, hiberfil etc.

One issue that can arise is that the target drive is not offered if it is locked for any reason by Windows - this can happen if the target drive is connected by SATA rather than USB, where the drive is seen as non-removable and can therefore be locked by System Protection etc.

Doing this type of activity is best done using the Acronis bootable Rescue Media where this is working completely outside of any involvement from Windows or Security programs etc.

Well, this was not a restore of a whole disk, but this was a step-by-step restore of single partitions. And the target drive was not locked by windows, because it was a second drive with no volume letter assigned. So it was completely available. And, as I said, this was the second time in my life I encountered this problem. I think that this problem is therefore reproducable.

Could be that partition resizing during a restore in ATI 2014 is only available when restoring a whole disk instead of single partitions one after another. If I have time I will investigate on this issue in a virtual machine, and I will see if this issue arises in ATI 2017, too.

BTW If the target drive is not locked it should not be necessary to use the rescue media. And I doubt that the rescue media has more functionality than the Windows version.

Thorsten, the key reason to recommend using the rescue media is to avoid any interaction or interference from any running Windows OS or applications, including security programs such as antivirus etc.

The rescue media is always required for situations where Windows won't or can't start up normally or when doing a bare-metal recovery to a new drive etc.