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True Image from small partition of large disk to small disk

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My PC crashed real bad recently (even the System Rescue options didn't work anymore, the boot record was damaged somehow). Luckily I still had my previous boot disk (300Gb SATA SSD) connected, so I decided to boot from it and use to make a new image to the crashed 2Tb NVMe disk. I used the manual option to partition the destination disk and it worked perfectly. Now I'm almost done with reinstalling every application and configuring and I was thinking: my NVMe is partitioned 300Gb for OS (C) and the rest is for data (D)....can I use True Image to make an image of just the OS part to the 300Gb SSD for the next time something nasty happens? Or will it try to image the entire disk and fail?

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Tjarko, welcome to these public User Forums.

can I use True Image to make an image of just the OS part to the 300Gb SSD for the next time something nasty happens? Or will it try to image the entire disk and fail?

The answer here depends on what you mean by 'make an image .... to the 300GB SSD'?

If you mean to 'Clone' the updated working OS partition from your 2TB NVMe SSD  then the answer is no - cloning works on the whole disk, not individual partitions.

If you mean to Backup your working OS partition and store the .tib image file on the old SSD then that is no problem and can be done easily.

However, if what you are wanting to do here is to have a working copy / clone of your working OS on the 300GB SSD, so that you could repeat the steps you have already used, i.e. put the 300GB SSD back in and be able to boot from it, then this will require a different approach.

You would need to make a backup of the OS partition (from the NVMe SSD) to an external backup drive, then restore that backup to the 300GB SSD.

Please always have a good Disks & Partitions backup of your OS drive before attempting any cloning or other major changes or failures.

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, the idea was to have a permanent booting backup of my (now perfectly) configured OS (which was a lot of work). So next time this happens, I'll be able to boot from it and image it to the NVMe again. That saves me about 9 hours of installing and registering plugins and software. :-)

I have a 2Tb external disk laying around I can use to backup the 300Gb partition to. If I understand you correctly, I can restore that backup straight to the 300Gb SSD, and it would still be able to boot?

I'm thinking that I maybe should use the Acronis Survival Kit option for this purpose. It'll change the SSD into a bootable disc with a backup of the system partition (I backup the other data to my NAS every day). It seems that in times of trouble I can boot from SSD, and restore the backupped (fully configured OS) to my NVMe. 

Tjarko Busink wrote:

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, the idea was to have a permanent booting backup of my (now perfectly) configured OS (which was a lot of work). So next time this happens, I'll be able to boot from it and image it to the NVMe again. That saves me about 9 hours of installing and registering plugins and software. :-)

I have a 2Tb external disk laying around I can use to backup the 300Gb partition to. If I understand you correctly, I can restore that backup straight to the 300Gb SSD, and it would still be able to boot?

I'm thinking that I maybe should use the Acronis Survival Kit option for this purpose. It'll change the SSD into a bootable disc with a backup of the system partition (I backup the other data to my NAS every day). It seems that in times of trouble I can boot from SSD, and restore the backupped (fully configured OS) to my NVMe. 

Yup, the idea would be that the survival kit would contain a small bootable version of True Image rescue media on a hidden partition of the drive that you should be able to boot to using your bios one time boot menu or directing the bios boot order to it.  Once booted, you could navigate to your NVME backup images and restore the entire disk, or just certain partitions to the NVME and it should be bootable again.

This is essentially how True Image has saved my bacon on countless recoveries.  HOWEVER... of course, ideally you'd want to test this before a need to recover to make sure all outcome is as expected and also, preferably on a different disk for the restore so that you don't accidentally end up with an unexpected result from "testing" that leaves you back to square one.  Testing is absolutely good, but you generally want to test on something other than your currently working drive to be on the safe side.  Sometimes there is a learning curve with specific motherboard settings which can throw some curve balls if you've not tried it before.

Also, you don't have to use a survival kit... it's convenient at times, but personally, I just use a small USB flash drive and build rescue media on it and boot to that (makes it very portable and easy to update) - it's all a matter of preference.  Once booted up, you should still be able to navigate to and restore from any backups that are accessible.  

I found my wife's old laptop, and thought....I need to wipe that disc anyway before I can throw it away so maybe I should just use it. Turned out to be a 80Gb disc, and Acronis managed to fit both the Survival Kit as the backup of my OS drive on it (it's tiny because I have all my data, pics and sample libraries on the D partition). I don't feel much like testing it right now (too much risk, as you said), so I'll wait for the next disaster. These are rare in my setup though. This is the first time in years. It's not the end of the world if it doesn't work either. Just a lot of clicking and waiting. If this Survival Kit works, it means I'll be up and running much faster. 

Thanks for your help, guys. 

Tjarko Busink wrote:

Btw, why can't internal discs be used as Survival Kit discs? 

I think it's a safety feature to make sure someone doesn't accidentally wipe out a disk that is more likely to be there OS or data.  The rescue media is designed to be created on external USB drives - been that way for as long as I can remember (even before survival kit was available - that's still fairly new).

If you want a work-a-round, create a small USB rescue drive (flash drive).  Take a full disk backup of it.

Then, create a small partition on the front of another internal drive (not your OS drive) and restore the flash drive image to it.  you know have a bootable option on that drive.  You would need to use your bios one time boot menu or bios boot order to pick it - keep in mind that each bios has different / unique features like secure boot, encryption, etc, that can prevent booting of other internal and/or external drives so you may have to contend with that too.

Last, but not least - how you boot rescue media (whether that be a survival kit or basic rescue media makes a difference for recovery of an Operating System).  Check out this KB article:

https://kb.acronis.com/content/59877