Restoring data to a larger system drive

[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.

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.

[superticker]

... You can install to a bigger drive but recreate identical sized *partitions* on that larger drive.  Then ... use a partition tool to resize the restored C: to take up the full space.

Now can Partition Magic resize both the Windows and Linux partitions?  Will both of these partitions remain bootable without further work?  Yes, this is a dual-booted system.

Also, I read somewhere that Partition Magic is very old and that there's another utility people are using today instead.  I just can't remember the name.

I like the idea that True Image is faster than Paragon.  However, I don't understand why Paragon is MS gold certified and True Image isn't.  For the server product, Acronis recommends turning off the Windows shadow copy service during backup with True Image, and I'm wondering if that's why Microsoft didn't gold certify it.

[Carol Haynes]

Acronis probably isn't gold certified because they keep releasing new versions with loads of bugs (little more than betas at release).

Not sure if PM can resize Linux partitions (it is probably a little old for the newer formats anyway).

Acronis DiskDirector actually runs from Linux (on the bootable CD version) so I'd be surprised if it can't deal with Linux partitions.

What file systems does Acronis Disk Director Suite support?

Acronis Disk Director Suite supports all the most widely used file systems for PCs:

    * FAT16/FAT32 (file allocation table) — is used in DOS and Windows and supported by almost every operating system
    * NTFS (Windows NT file system) ) — has been introduced in Windows NT and is used by Windows NT/2000/XP/2003
    * Ext2 — is used by Linux operating systems
    * Ext3 — is the next generation of the Ext2 file system
    * LinuxSwap — is used for Linux swap partitions
    * ReiserFS — one of the most secure file system that is used on data servers

from http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/faq.html

[nudone]

my preference is paragon - doesn't look as nice as acronis but i had less trouble with it (acronis didn't want to remember the settings whilst rebooting but so far it seems like i'm the only person that experienced that problem).

the things you are speaking of are a bit too technical for me, superticker, so i can't provide any comment other than my line above.

[JavaJones]

I'm fairly sure Partition Magic can deal with most standard Linux partitions. I'm not aware of a newer replacement for it unfortunately but there's gotta be one around...

- Oshyan