Windows 10: Why can't I restore a Disk Image backup to a neww SSD?

I have a very long story. I'm sure I must have tried everything multiple times. I will give the short version.




New SSD - tried to clone old HDD using Clonezilla. Would not work because SSD is smaller then old HDD.

Installed AOMEI Partition Assistant which will clone to a smaller drive. Failed again. I had to run this on another PC. The one I am trying to upgrade is a Dell AIO with no provision for a second drive. The other PC uses Secure Boot but also uses MBR. This surprised me but I assume it is an early version of UEFI that is not fully implemented. Whatever the explanation, it cloned alright but the SSD with the cloned OS would not boot. After many iterations of trying combinations of UEFI or Legacy Boot, MBR or GPT I gave up on cloning.




I re-installed the original HDD, booted up and made a Disk Image backup. Installed the SSD and installed Win 10 from a USB flash drive. Disk Image refused to restore because it was made from a larger HDD.




Skip to the end. There were many, many things tried including returning the original SSD for another make and model Crucial BX-500. I used a different HDD, installed Win 10, restored the Disk Image successfully. Then used Win 10 disk management to shrink the partition to well below the size of the new SSD. Tested and it boots OK. Created new Disk Image from the smaller partition. Installed new SSD. Installed Win 10 and it boots successfully.




Booted from the Win 10 install USB flash drive. Went into repair Windows. Selected restore from Disk Image. Disk Image was found on USB external HDD. Get a message that no suitable drive to restore the Image to was found.




Also tried booting from Win 10 Repair CD. This fails because you have to use Legacy Boot to boot from CD.

In summary – the whole process can be used to transfer the original HDD contents to another HDD but it fails miserably with an SSD.



This could have been done easily in a PC with provision for multiple HDD/SSD’s. Surely it can be done in this AIO which is basically the same situation as in a laptop with no provision for a second HDD.



At wits end!

:)

 

Restoring Windows 10 Image using Macrium Reflect


In addition to the above. Here's my suggestion in step by step.
I assume you have Macrium Installed in your current HD and already made a backup copy.

1. Connect your new HD via USB port and boot up.
2. Run Macrium, click on Restore tab then select the Backup Image that you made to restore
3. click on "select a different target disk" then select your new HD as destination
   
   
   
4. Proceed to restore then Shutdown and disconnect the old HD and replace with the new HD
5. Boot up with your new HD.

 

Can I restore an SSD image to a normal hard drive disk

Originally I was thinking of doing 2 SSDs in raid 1, but then I thought that I could just backup my ssd to an image every once in a while, and in case of failure, I could just restore that image to another ssd.

But can I restore that image to a normal harddrive?

 

How to restore system image backup

Ryan,

To restore from a system image by booting with an installation disk or System repair disk -

1. [Boot from the disk]
2. Select language, formats & keyboard,
3. Select Repair your computer,
4. Troubleshoot,
5. Advanced options, [and see note ***]
6. System image recovery,
7. Accept the latest image identified by the system or, if you have multiple images saved on your backup drive, use Select a image to chose the one you want.
8. The rest is entirely menu driven. Whilst there are some options that can be chosen, the defaults are normally off for all these and should be accepted.

I am not familiar with use of a Windows 10 "Recovery drive" but I would expect only the opening steps to be any different. Everything after selecting System image recovery would, I expect, be the same.

If you get any untoward events such as warnings about formatting drives, please take a photo of the screen and post it here.

If, when booting from an installation disk etc, you are interrupted by this dialog, just select No. The only time I have seen this dialog was when I was restoring a system image straight after having installed a new Windows 10 version.




*** Do be aware that your normal drive letter assignments do not [temporarily] apply when booting from an installation disk etc or using the onboard restore facility ["WRE"] so from the Advanced options you can select Command prompt then use Dir C: then Dir D: and so on commands to look at each drive in turn to figure out what each one is temporarily called [ignore the X drive, it is a virtual drive controlling the computer during this procedure]. When you have finished, type Exit to close the Command prompt and it will take you back to the Choose an option screen where you can select Troubleshoot, my step 4 above.

Denis