Restoring to dissimilar hardware using remote desktop
Hi everyone.
I own the most recent versions of ATIH and its Plus Pack Add-On. I am planning to restore an image of Windows 7 I created in my computer (SSD) to a different computer (HDD) using remote desktop technology. As I don't have physical access to that computer, using a boot CD is not an easy option.
My questions are the following:
1) Can an universal restore be performed without the boot CD, that is by installing ATIH+Addon in the remote machine and using that to restore the image?
2) Are there complications to be expected from the fact that I created my image on an SSD and intend to restore it to a mechanical hard drive?
3) Can I place the drivers in a separate partition on the destination disk?
I would appreciate if the experts around could give me some tips as to how to go about accomplishing the task.
Thanks in advance
Adriano
edit: I was trying to simulate the situation by attempting to recover the image, made on my desktop, to my laptop using ATHI/Addon installed on it (not the boot CD). When I select the image, the "use universal restore" option is grayed out. If I however select the image of my laptop, the option is available. Is it because my laptop SSD is partitioned differently (3 partitions) than the image I'm trying to restore (1 partition)?
Adriano,
I don't know why the option doesn't show in your case. Maybe you have a dual boot on your SSD? I would personally not try UR from Windows: I would be concerned that ATI wouldn't find the drivers I selected from withing Windows after it reboots into Linux, but maybe it just works...
There are no direct implications of restoring from an SSD to a spinning drive, assuming the interface type is not changed (eg from AHCI to IDE or vice versa).
You could place the drivers on a separate partition, but you will have to be careful to select only one partition (and not the entire disk) from your backup to restore on another partition.
I tried it yesterday and set up ATI to send me e-mail notificationsduring the process. There were two problems. First, ATI did not find the pendrive containing the drivers, probably because the drive letter had changed. I intend to solve that by placing the drivers on the network (\\server\drivers, for instance). The second problem is that the boot sector protection in the bios halted the process. There is a message saying "bootsector write virus continue?" I'll try to continue and see how it goes.
I changed the strategy a little and created the image in the target machine using virtualbox. Once I was finished with the windows installation, I booted the virtual machine with the acronis bood cd and created the image. I then went back to the host, installed ATI and attempted to universally restore the MBR, the System Reserved and the Windows partition. I also prepared the target disc with ADD to have the same partition structure as the virtualbox drive had (System Reserved+Windows partition), though I'm not sure if that was really necessary. Would it work on a target disk that has more partitions? Was it correct to include the MBR of the virtualbox drive in the universal restore process?
Adriano,
You should do the restore from the boot CD you created after the installation of the Plus Pack. It is not necessary to prepare the disk with partitions before restore, since the disk will be rewritten with the partitions you restore if you restore the entire disk. If you restore the partitions one by one, then ATI lets you pick where to restore each of them. If you don't restore the MBR, you can use the Win 7 installation DVD to recreate one.
Dear Pat, thanks for the valuable help. Using the CD was not the easiest option in my case, but as I came to find out, it is probably the only option. I made a second restore the same way as the previous but to a laptop and although the e-mail notifications said that all drivers were found (I placed both the image and the drivers in a network path), I ended up with a BSOD. After rebooting the machine it displayed the "MBR not found" error (as did the first PC I mentioned in previous posts, by the way).
What is interesting it that repairing the first PC with the Win7 DVD did not solve the MBR error. For this PC, I was only able to boot into Windows by repeating the restore procedure, but using an Acronis Boot CD devoid of the Plus Pack! As for the laptop, I will repeat the same steps to see if it is reproducible. In any case, I believe the Universal Restore option should only be available in Rescue CDs generated by ATI/Addon installations, but not within the installation itself, as it won't work well and should not be attempted.
Greetings
Adriano