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Restoring data to a larger system drive

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superticker:
Usually it's older drives that fail and usually you replace older drives with larger ones.  So will Genie or Paragon (or something else) let you restore to a larger drive?  I e-mailed Acronis, and they said their product would only restore to drives of like size.  :(

If you're restoring the system device to a drive of unlike size, will the boot blocks get restored correctly, or would you need to use the OS to rewrite those?  I'm assumng the latter, but since these backup utilities are designed specifically for Windows, perhaps they are smart enough to restore the boot blocks in the right places for the new disk size too (Or does that sound too dangerous?).

What I really want to do is be able to upgrade the system device using the backup utility when it's necessary.  Is there a backup utility that can do this?

mouser:
i dont know why acronis told you that -
acronis true image and all other drive backup tools i've ever tried have no problem restoring to a bigger partition.

Carol Haynes:
I have found Acronis email response can be a bit hit and miss - they don't always read the question until you respnd with a snotty comment. Like Mouser I have not had any problems restoring to larger partitions.

Worst scenario restore to a partition the same size and then use Partition Magic to resize it.

nudone:
I have found Acronis email response can be a bit hit and miss - they don't always read the question until you respnd with a snotty comment. Like Mouser I have not had any problems restoring to larger partitions.

Worst scenario restore to a partition the same size and then use Partition Magic to resize it.
-Carol Haynes (June 21, 2006, 09:01 AM)
--- End quote ---

i agree with Carol, i've done that a few times without any problem that i remember.

mouser:
just to clarify what nudone and carol are saying in case you're not up on the nomenclature:

you can install to a bigger drive but recreate identical sized *partitions* on that larger drive.  Then you would have some extra unused space on the new drive.  You could either create a new partition there (like adding a D: in addition to your C:), or use a partition tool to resize the restored C: to take up the full space.

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