Windows 10: Imaging a HD

I agree. It would help us to advice you if we knew exactly what you are trying to achieve? If you are simply trying to upgrade to Windows 10 and have now created a system image, you don't have to install anything. Just use the Media Creation to create the install media, then launch the upgrade.

 

I started to check if my w8.1 media rescue USB worked on my spare 500GB disk; It didn't work saying "not enough space", as I showed you in my scanearlier.

A few of you sagested I delete all & format the whole 500gb as one partition & then test again my w8.1 m.rescue USB on it.

So just now I installed w8 with my DVD & tried to update it with the w8.1rescue media USB but, unfortunately the same thing happened "NOT enough space", & the same scan I showed before applies except that the destination disk now has one partition of 500GB.

Please stop bickering between you & make sound sugestions if you have any.

Many thanks for trying to help me & sorry for any mistakes here as I am using the small Acer notebook.

 

Well what about telling people exactly what you want to do? For example what's a "w8.1 media rescue USB"? An usb port that rescues your Windows 8.1? From what? Drowning? A fire? Being stolen?

Sorry but try to be exact about what it is you really want. If you hat written something like: "I took an image of my Windows 8.1 system disk which is 223 GB. Now I want to check if this image works and restore it onto another disk which is only 500 GB. Is this possible?" everybody would have understood what you meant. Instead you wrote this: "Will an image 223GB of 1 Tbite HD go into another 500GB HD?" which can basically mean anything from creating an image to restoring one.

It's you who created the confusion. And now that you have clarified at least some of what you are trying to do the answer is simple. In order to restore an image onto another hard disk there must be enough free (unpartitioned) space on that disk. Some imaging programs might allow repartitioning during the restore process but generally images can only be restored if there is enough free (so called unallocated) space.

 

Lol, I've already told you what to do.

*Waits for the other 'experts' to repeat what I've already said, in a more incomprehensible manner.*

 

See, in order to get the desired answer you need to tell people what you want to do. What the ... are you trying to do? Updating an existing Windows 8.1 with a system image you took earlier? You cannot update a Windows system with an image. An image is to restore a system (or data) to a certain state, for example after a system modification went wrong or after a loss of data due to a hardware failure.

So basically my crystal ball tells me that there could be 3 things you might be trying to achieve:

• Restoring an image of your system partition: In this case you would need to wipe your current system off the hard disk (delete all the partitions), then you can restore the image (be careful, if the image does not work you will lose your os).
• You are actually trying to update your Windows 8.1 to something else (maybe Windows 10). But this cannot be done with a system image. First you need a running Windows. Then you can either use the built in Windows update tool to update or you can use the media creation tool to download an .iso image of Windows 10 from the MS servers.
• You are trying to do a clean install. For this you either need an install DVD or a .iso image (that you downloaded from the MS servers) to reinstall Windows 8.1. Once again, you cannot do a clean install using an image you took of your system earlier.

 

I don't profess to be an expert. I'm just an ordinary guy trying to help someone.

The OP's dilemma has nothing to do with imaging as in the thread title and opening post. Nor is it anything to do with restoring an image. What he'd like to do is Clone a hard drive. Which was never mentioned.
He'd have to shrink all the partitions so the total was less than 500GB. I can't see the point because he'd end up with very little free space spread across 6 partitions.

 

No, bro, you still haven't got it either. Please refer to the graphic I made for Kari.

OP wants to restore an image he took of a 1TB disk to a 500GB disk.

If he had followed my simple advice he would have had his system up and running aeons ago.

 

Look, it's clear I'm the only one who understood what you were trying to do. If you want some straight forward help I'm prepared to give you a second chance as this thread has proved to be quite entertaining. *Wink

I'll repeat what I've said with a bit more elaboration if you want. But you'll have to agree to ignore everyone else till we're done as too many cooks clearly spoil the broth!

 

SOLVED

Thanx all,

I sincerely apologise if my inadequacy to explain properly caused you so much trouble.

I have been trying for ages to create an w8.1 media rescue USB of my 1Tbite main HD.

I finally created one & to make sure it worked (having failed to make a virtual disk) I tried to test it on my spare 500gb HD but, it did not install w8.1 saying "Not enough space".

As a few helpful people here suggested, I deleted all 6 partitions & reformatted the whole 500gb as one partition & installed W8 on it.

I created the w8.1 media rescue all over again on another 8gb USB stick (just in case the first one was wrong), plugged it in
& set it as 1st boot in the Bios.

Then rebooted & lo & behold this time the test worked & w8 was updated to w8.1.

Asus P5K Premium WiFiiFi, Intel Core 2 Quad Pro 2.4GHz, OCZ Cpu Cooler, 2x2GB, DDR2 800 PC2-6400, GeForce 9800 GTX (PCI-E), a Seagate 500gb & a WD1Tbite, OCZ 600W Psu, Win8/8.1/10

 

As long as you're happy Nichos, that's all that matters. Have fun.

Torqy