nlinecomputers
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Did you follow the instructions on my link? It is NOT obvious from a screenshot how to do this. This is very much an "RTFM and follow the directions exactly" procedure.
Cloning down from an image?
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That'll be due to that last partition. Reflect doesn't know which partition to resize; it will only resize the last partition which, in this case, can't be resized. If the last partition isn't needed, just unselect it and try again.
IIRC, what you need to do if the last partition is needed is to unselect it, click 'copy selected partitions' then click 'Restored partition properties' and resize the second partition, just enough to make room for the last partition. You should then be able to copy (drag) the last partition over.
IIRC, what you need to do if the last partition is needed is to unselect it, click 'copy selected partitions' then click 'Restored partition properties' and resize the second partition, just enough to make room for the last partition. You should then be able to copy (drag) the last partition over.
14 steps? I can RTFM as well as the next but that seems excessive and I was looking for something that handled the job a bit more streamlined.
Even I don't know if I need the past partition and if I have to start manually sizing, fitting and moving partitions then this isn't the software I'm looking for.
nlinecomputers
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Once you have done it a couple of times you'll find that it goes much faster than it seems.
nlinecomputers
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What you ask for really isn't possible as it takes human judgment to decide which partitions are going to be cut down.
YeOldeStonecat
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Acronis does this but yes you need to get your hands dirty and manually select which partition and to what size.
Hmmm.... Disk downsize cloning is a couple of clicks and handles the partition resizing automatically. Not sure why it should be so tough with an image......
I'm not sure you'll find what you're looking for in that case. When there's multiple partitions involved, at the very least the software will need to prompt you to decide which partition(s) you'd like to reduce.
It takes no more than a few seconds in Reflect. You just reduce one of the partitions by the amount of the remaining partition to make space for it, then drag and drop the remaining partition over.
You may or may not need that last partition. It looks like some sort of recovery partition but you could include it to be safe.
Acronis has quite the product line. Can you be more specific?
YeOldeStonecat
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The logical choice for cloning would be true image.we can even start with the free one available from your favorite hard drive manufacturers support section.
I'm familiar with True Image but haven't been here for a long time. I'll trial it again. Cloning a 1TB 3.5" drive down to a 120GB SSD is a good challenge to try out across the different apps. The apps that have "one-click" clone-down from drive to drive don't ever make this big of leap and most have to take it in several steps. I've already cloned the 1TB drive down to a 320GB before imaging for the Reflect trials above.
Thanks all.
NJW
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Just a WAG, but a disk is random access storage – empty space can be easily skipped over; an image is a 'serial read' thing – start at the beginning, decompress and keep going to the end. A compressed image won't have easily identifiable empty spaces.
Alternatively, have a look at FSArchiver (it's on SystemRescueCD):
FSArchiver is all cli, so expect to RTFM for that one. There is a gui front-end, qt5-fsarchiver, and there's a Live CD image there (never used the gui).
NJW
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That's reasonable, but it's a choice that must be made at the time of making the image.
From your screenshot, Reflect's 'Intelligent sector copy' is actually a filesystem level operation – the only way that pagefile and hibernation files (and empty space) can be identified – whereas 'Make an exact copy ...' is sector level, which knows nothing of what's in each sector.
In fact, that's probably the answer to @Diggs's OP: the image file must be (some sort of) filesystem image, not a disk sector image, to have any chance of downsizing on restore. The imaging process determines the restore possibilities. The alternative is to restore the (sector) image to a temporary filesystem and pick the files to restore to the target disk, <understatement>but that's cumbersome.</understatement>
Altster
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If you are grabbing just an image and not a full-on clone, this is an excellent program to use. Recently I've loaded some units and then grabbed "just" the images for backup (off site) if needed. I love Clonezilla.
After all I am a big fan of Open-Source programs.BTW - I meant to mention. I auto-downsize clone drives that have 3-4 partitions using Lazesoft all the time. Never had a problem with that part of it. I do look at the partition sizes it is recommending but never needed to change them. Aomei will do it with three partitions but not any more when downsizing.
glennd
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I've read the thread a couple of times and didn't find a definitive answer to the OP question. The question of downsizing an image. I've googled for a long time and have come to the conclusion that it can't be done, easily or reliably if at all. The only thing to do is put the image onto a disk that's as big as the image then use the partition tools to shrink it to the target size then clone that to the target disk.
alluseridsrejected
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In ShadowProtect you have SOME ability to shrink a volume. You mount the image as writable. Then you dismount the image and select save changes and shrink volume:
alluseridsrejected
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This is what the ShadowProtect Manual says about shrinking a volume:
http://www.storagecraft.com/support/kb/article/152
http://www.storagecraft.com/support/kb/article/152
NOTE:
A common misconception on this message is the amount of space that is needed to restore. The space that is looked at is not the "Used space" in the backup but the actual "Volume size" that was backed up. This is a screen shot of the image being restored before the shrink it would need a 2 TB volume to restore even though only 14 GB is used. Once the Volume is shrunk with the above steps the Volume Size should change to reflect the volume size now needed to restore.
Limitations:
This section discusses limitations that can affect the amount of space that you will be able to clear out using the shrink volume process.
Limitations: The Shrink Process itself.
This shrink option we supply is performed using the Microsoft shrink utility, and thus has the same performance characteristics. See Microsoft website for further details: TechNet - Shrink A Basic Volume
Microsoft advises that:
"When you shrink a partition, unmovable files (for example, the paging file or the shadow copy storage area) are not automatically relocated and you cannot decrease the allocated space beyond the point where the unmovable files are located. If you need to shrink the partition further, move the paging file to another disk, delete the stored shadow copies, shrink the volume, and then move the paging file back to the disk."
Limitations: Disk Fragmentation.
The volume can only be shrunk to the last track where data exists on the volume (See directly above). If your disk is highly fragmented, the ability to shrink your free space will be restricted. If at all possible, it is highly recommended that you perform an extensive defragmentation of the volume to be shrunk BEFORE you take the ShadowProtect backup. Please note that in order for a defrag to be successful, it requires 15% free space on the disk.
Limitations: Mirror Master File Table.
A backup copy of the Master File Table (MFT) is normally located at about the mid-point of the volume. This will therefore limit the amount of the shrink to half of the disk size (if you have less than 50% data on your volume). For example, a freshly de-fragmented 300GB volume that contained 7GB of data, when shrunk by this process achieved a new volume size of 146GB (approximately 50%).
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