Imaging To Smaller Partition?

[(PeteCresswell)]

I'm about to buy a laptop with, say, a 300-gig hard drive.

My Expectations:

- The installed system will contain a bunch of marketing stuff

- The hard drive will have only one partition or maybe a second
partition for the recovery disc image if they're saving money
on discs.

- Recovery discs will not offer up a re-partitioning option and
will restore the hard drive to precisely the state it was
when the laptop was new.


My Agenda:

- To tweak the system to where I want it

Install more applications
Get rid of the marketing stuff

- To image the tweaked system in such a way
that it can be restored to a 30-gig partition.

- To re-partition the hard drive

30 gigs for the system
The rest for a D: ("Data") drive

- To re-image said hard drive


My Question:

Is there a way to image that 300-gig partition - which will
contain less than 30 gigs of actual "stuff" - in such a way that
a good system can be created by re-imaging to a 30-gig partition?

Seems like it might be theoretically possible if the utility
could know which sectors were virgin and which were used... or if
the partition were defragged to where everything was contiguous
and the utility could figure out where that was.

 

[Twayne]

In

I'm about to buy a laptop with, say, a 300-gig hard drive.

My Expectations:

- The installed system will contain a bunch of marketing
stuff

- The hard drive will have only one partition or maybe a
second partition for the recovery disc image if they're
saving money on discs.

- Recovery discs will not offer up a re-partitioning option
and will restore the hard drive to precisely the state it
was when the laptop was new.


My Agenda:

- To tweak the system to where I want it

- To image the tweaked system in such a way
that it can be restored to a 30-gig partition.

- To re-partition the hard drive

- To re-image said hard drive


My Question:

Is there a way to image that 300-gig partition - which will
contain less than 30 gigs of actual "stuff" - in such a way
that a good system can be created by re-imaging to a 30-gig
partition?

Seems like it might be theoretically possible if the utility
could know which sectors were virgin and which were used...
or if the partition were defragged to where everything was
contiguous and the utility could figure out where that was.

You cannot "image" to a smaller drive if you're using the term literally.
Read the manual that came with your imaging ware.

If your "image" is, say, a Norton Ghost image, then as long as the new drive
is large enough to hold all the data in storage, then yes, it'll work. If
you're lucky you have a separate image of your boot drive: Use that and only
restore the OS related programs/folders. It should fit into 30 Gig, but
depending on what programs you have installed, that could be too small for
much growth in the future. 50 Gig would be a much better number and IMO 80
Gig ideal so that you don't fill more than 85% of the drive.

BTW, you "image" to a restore drive. You Restore images TO your hard drives.

You're not going to get well targetted answers because you have provided
pathetically little information to go on.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per (PeteCresswell):

My Question:

Is there a way to image that 300-gig partition - which will
contain less than 30 gigs of actual "stuff" - in such a way that
a good system can be created by re-imaging to a 30-gig partition?

It *sounds* like Acronis True Image will do this.

Anybody with TI actually done it?

 

[Do Dah Zippity]

: Per (PeteCresswell):
: >My Question:
: >
: >Is there a way to image that 300-gig partition - which will
: >contain less than 30 gigs of actual "stuff" - in such a way that
: >a good system can be created by re-imaging to a 30-gig partition?
:
:
: It *sounds* like Acronis True Image will do this.
:
: Anybody with TI actually done it?
: --
: PeteCresswell

Why don't you ask some of the TI users in their forum? DUH!

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per (PeteCresswell):

Is there a way to image that 300-gig partition - which will
contain less than 30 gigs of actual "stuff" - in such a way that
a good system can be created by re-imaging to a 30-gig partition?

I think I've got a workaround answer.

The laptop in question is a new Sony VAIO.

The drive has invisible partitions dedicated to restoring the
system almost exactly as it came out of the box.

You press a red "Assist" button when the computer is turned off,
and it boots up into a special recovery environment - located, I
guess, on one of the invisible partitions.

"Almost" bc at that point one can choose to change the size of
the system partition. I changed it from 200+ gigs down to 50
gigs and it automagically created a "D:" partition with the
remainder.

The restore process is running right now.

If it is successful, I will have a 50-gig system partition where
I can install software, delete stuff, and tweak settings to my
heart's content.

Once it's the way I want it, I can fire up my tried-and-true
TeraByte "Image.exe" DOS program and pull off an image of C:.

Sounds like Acronis can do this with the additional ability to
resize partitions on-the-fly.... but TeraByte's Image has been
working for me for so long that I'll stick with it.

 

[Rick Chauvin]

I'm about to buy a laptop with, say, a 300-gig hard drive.

My Expectations:

- The installed system will contain a bunch of marketing
stuff

- The hard drive will have only one partition or maybe a
second partition for the recovery disc image if they're
saving money on discs.

- Recovery discs will not offer up a re-partitioning option
and will restore the hard drive to precisely the state it
was when the laptop was new.


My Agenda:

- To tweak the system to where I want it

- To image the tweaked system in such a way
that it can be restored to a 30-gig partition.

- To re-partition the hard drive

- To re-image said hard drive


My Question:

Is there a way to image that 300-gig partition - which will
contain less than 30 gigs of actual "stuff" - in such a way
that a good system can be created by re-imaging to a 30-gig
partition?

Yes absolutely!

As long as you are imaging back into a larger partition than the actual
uncompressed data it originally contains. Give it an extra 25% for use and
growth.

I would always for good measure, make a image of your C partition just as
it came from the factory First, just for reference or even restore for
unique purposes.

I use True Image which will do that on the fly, I've had the pleasure of
restoring a thousand images by now, but you can use your favorite
imager as well.

Seems like it might be theoretically possible if the utility
could know which sectors were virgin and which were used...

Well it does,

or if the partition were defragged to where everything was
contiguous and the utility could figure out where that was.

Even if you didn't defrag it will still restore it back to the beginning of
the drive, even if was at first spread out over the entire 300 GB; the only
way it will restore it's Original sector to sector positions is if you
choose that Sector Level option of which not many Programs offer that
option anymore, and is usually only good if for forensics or specific
sector recovering, otherwise it's of little use and too time consuming.

Rick

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Rick Chauvin:

I use True Image which will do that on the fly, I've had the pleasure of
restoring a thousand images by now, but you can use your favorite
imager as well.


Well it does,


Even if you didn't defrag it will still restore it back to the beginning of
the drive, even if was at first spread out over the entire 300 GB; the only
way it will restore it's Original sector to sector positions is if you
choose that Sector Level option of which not many Programs offer that
option anymore, and is usually only good if for forensics or specific
sector recovering, otherwise it's of little use and too time consuming.

Well, I got down and dirty with the VAIO yesterday.

As you suggest, I did the factory image thing first.

Then I fired up Sony's "Restore" utility.

Pleasant surprise: it offers up an option to size C: however one
wants - giving the remainder of space to a D: partition which it
automagically creates. (I'm guessing it does some validation on
the C: size.... but I didn't push my luck... just gave it 50 gigs
for CYA).

The restore *looks* like they're building the system from scratch
instead of an image. Takes a looooong time and the progress
dialog refers to stuff like "Installing drivers...."

Overall, a positive experience and, if the choice of size is not
some sort of industry standard feature, I'd cite it as a reason
to favor Sony.

 

[Justin]

Per (PeteCresswell):


It *sounds* like Acronis True Image will do this.

Anybody with TI actually done it?

Pete, check out CloneZilla - I think the newest version will do exactly
that. Plus its open source.