Is there software that allows to clone a partition to another of different size?

[Lixorer]

...subject...

[PrntRhd]

Probably yes,
Perhaps if you explain what you are trying to accomplish?

[Sylvander]

You can use an image backup program [I use "Image for DOS" (IFD), but "Boot-It NG" (BiNG) will do that and more] to make an image of the contents of a partition, then restore that to any other partition, so long as the partition space available is big enough to take it.
If the image is smaller than the new partition, the unused space will be "Unallocated" space.
"Image for DOS" does this without loading Windows from the HDD [no boot from the HDD].
You can then use a non-destructive partition resizing program [like "Boot-It NG"] to rearrange the partitions on the HDD to use the unallocated space.

IFD & BiNG will work with external USB connected HDD's [got both plus "Image for Windows", but still learning].
It's really useful that IFD can backup to and restore from a USB HDD!

[Lixorer]

PrntRhd
I have an image of my system partition and I'm trying to restore the data from this image to a Virtual PC partition.

Sylvander
Thank you!

Couldn't you also recommend me a way of restoring a partition to a partition with another volume letter?

[Sylvander]

"recommend me a way of restoring a partition to a partition with another volume letter?"
With any of the TeraByte (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html) suite of programs ["Image for DOS" (IFD), "Image for Windows" (IFW), "Boot-It NG" (BiNG)] the letter given to the volume doesn't matter; an image can be restored to ANY partition [except IFW cannot restore the Windows partition from which it is running, and the partition must be big enough to hold the image contents].

"I have an image of my system partition and I'm trying to restore the data from this image to a Virtual PC partition"
What's a "Virtual PC partition"?
Are you trying to restore ONLY the data files, or all of the contents of the image?
The [FREE] TBIview from Terabyte can [whilst running within Windows] restore any/all of the [chosen] folders/files within an image [img] file to any chosen location [not sure of any Windows limitations].
Whereas the others [IFD,IFW,BiNG] restore only the WHOLE of the image, and from outwith Windows.

[Lixorer]

Sylvander
Thanks again. It's the image with an installed Win98 OS in it and I need to restore the entire image so that not to install OS.
"What's a "Virtual PC partition"?" I meant a partition that is on a virtual hard disk created by "Microsoft Virtual PC" (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx).

[Sylvander]

...And is it possible to restore an image to a "Virtual PC partition"?

Would that have to be done from within Windows?

[Lixorer]

I don't know why it shouldn't be possible. As soon as I free ehough space on my HDD, I'll try to do it and report the result here.

[Lixorer]

Would that have to be done from within Windows?
I think so, since Virtual PC is a Windows application.

[ErnieK]

I have never given this a thought until now, but I don't think this will be possible.

To open and run a Virtual PC (drive) you have to have Windows running and to re-insert an image you normally have to reboot your computer thus closing the Virtual PC (drive) and so I think that the installation of an image would fail.

As per normal I stand a good chance of being wrong. :rolleyes: and I would like to be proven so on this occasion. :p

[Lixorer]

Well, you are wrong :) I can have Virtual PC running in Windows. Than boot Virtual PC from floppy or CD (just as an ordinary PC as Virtual PC can use my hardware floppy and CD-ROM drive) and restore the image from a CD etc.

[jlreich]

Yeah it shouldn't be a problem. You have to reboot the virtual machine (but not the host OS) to install XP on it. You can boot from CD's and a floppy like normal. So you should be able to boot from say a BiNG boot disc and take care of business no problem. I have not tried it on any of my VM's though, so I won't swear by it. I have booted ISO images though. Even got a couple of Live CD's to run from the ISO's on my HDD in a VM.

[ErnieK]

Thanks Lixorer I stand corrected. No prizes for guessing what I will be trying later this week :)

[Lixorer]

Sylvander
I've tried BootIt Next Generation. Although a shareware program, it wouldn't make an image of a partition until paid registration. It installed a free boot manager instead, though I didn't want it.

Ernie
Let me know if there's any progress :)

[jlreich]

Sylvander
I've tried BootIt Next Generation. Although a shareware program, it wouldn't make an image of a partition until paid registration. It installed a free boot manager instead, though I didn't want it.
That's not right, BiNG is a fully functional trial ware. I have used BiNG for quite a long time now. I am registered but have often used the disk alone without installing to make images of partitions.

There is no need to install it if you don't need the boot manager. Click cancel when it prompts to install and you will go into maintenance mode. From there you can make images and all the other partition operations.

You can uninstall from the menu. Then boot from the CD or floppy. I do recommend reading through the PDF manual to get familiar with the functions.

If you end up finding the program useful I do recommend buying and installing it so it is available without booting from the CD.

[Sylvander]

I've bought all three...
Before that I used the free trial version of "Image for DOS" included on the [FREE] "Emergency Boot CD" [EBCD].
Personally...
So far I like "Image for DOS" [IFD] best; seems to me to be easiest to use.
But I think I can see why people would like BiNG; it does the lot [almost], but I haven't yet got into using it [it's sitting wasting space so far].
Neither seem to me to be blindingly obvious how to operate the various software steps...
But that said, once I figured out [was told here an the PC-Guide the couple of steps that weren't obvious] how to do things in IFD I began to like it a lot.
It's really quick and easy to use the software, and efficient and effective in completing the tasks.

EXAMPLE
You fell into the 1st BiNG trap; you installed it to the HDD.
Once you learn these few kind of things all the problems disappear.

[Lixorer]

Yes, it makes images. Reading all 40+ pages of the manual would have taken too much time for me, so I only read two chapters, the first one about installing and another "Working with Image Sets". I should have read "Working with partitions" instead. Yes, it's really quick and it allows to restore an image to a partition of large size leaving allocated space, that then can be added to the restored partition, though not always safely. But it seems impossible to restore if the new partition is smaller that the old. Even if all the files fit in the size of the new partition. For example, if I had an installed OS that takes up 100MB on a 10GB partition and made an image of that partition, I couldn't restore this image to a say 9GB partition. Is that right?

Originally Posted by jlreich
BiNG is a fully functional trial ware
That's not right either. If you look at the first image (picture) in the manual, you can see the main maintenance screen with an "Image Set" link in it. In an unregistered program there's a "Register" link instead. As described here http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=258 That was the reason for my previous post.

[jlreich]

That's not right either. If you look at the first image (picture) in the manual, you can see the main maintenance screen with an "Image Set" link in it. In an unregistered program there's a "Register" link instead. As described here http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=258 That was the reason for my previous post.
You are right about the image set not working in the trial ware. I never noticed that. :o I always go into "partition work" and do the images from there. I know that works.
For example, if I had an installed OS that takes up 100MB on a 10GB partition and made an image of that partition, I couldn't restore this image to a say 9GB partition. Is that right?
That is correct. I ran into this problem not long ago after replacing a bad HDD with a smaller one on a laptop for a customer. Thankfully I had made a BiNG image last time I had worked on the machine.

My solution was to restore the image on a large enough partition or HDD on another machine (don't try to boot from it!), then resize it to fit the smaller HDD, then make an image of the resized partition and restore that one to the smaller HDD. Worked just fine for me. And you don't have to worry about losing data when resizing because you already have a backup image. If something goes wrong just start over.

It seems like a lot of work, but if you need to go to a smaller HDD it's the only way. This is not just with BiNG, but all image programs as far as I know.

Note that BiNG sees the size of the drive in binary (like it should be) and not decimal like the HDD manufacturers do. So make sure you resize the partition small enough to fit on the partition you want to put it on. For example, I had to put a 60GB image (less than 6GB used) on a 40GB HDD (40GB according to manufacturer). I had to resize the partition something like 38GB (in binary) for it to fit. That left a little free space, but I just resized to take up the remaining space. It's always safer to resize up.

But that only helps if you have enough HDD space to do it.

[Lixorer]

Thank you both! You were most helpful :)

------------------------------------------------------
A misprint in my previous post large-->larger.

[jlreich]

then can be added to the restored partition, though not always safely
There is always some inherent risk when messing around with partitions no matter what program you use. That is why they always give the warnings in the manual. Standard 'cover thy butt' practice.

I have been messing around with partitions quite a lot for quite awhile now, and the only time I have suffered any data lose was when I resized a partition to make it smaller. I think it was because I made it smaller than it should have been for how much data was on there. I have since resized partitions to a smaller size with data on them many times with nary a problem, but always after making a backup just in case. ;)

[Paul Komski]

So we have surmised that you want to partition and image your installations running on a virtual drive (or virtual drives) on a virtual PC. Fine - and that should work OK.

But remember that you may be going to unnecessay trouble unless you just want to try out the imaging/partitioning software on the VM.

To make copies of the virtual drive for backup purposes all you need to do is to exit the VM and make a copy of the Virtual HDD (.vhd) file somewhere else on your real HDD.

Also look at the other configurations that you can use since it is possible to have the vhd expand/contract dynamically to save on real HDD space and also to be given the option to commit or reject any changes made to the "system" during the VM session.

Final point is that if you make any files on your VM and want to get them onto your real machine then you must network the real and virtual machines and transfer as if they were two networked PCs.

[sburtchin]

But it seems impossible to restore if the new partition is smaller that the old. Even if all the files fit in the size of the new partition. For example, if I had an installed OS that takes up 100MB on a 10GB partition and made an image of that partition, I couldn't restore this image to a say 9GB partition. Is that right?Partition Saving (http://www.partition-saving.com/) (freeware) claims that it can do exactly this. According to what they say in their manual, you could probably restore that to a 150MB partition if you defrag the source before taking the image. If you don't defrag, you may not be able to go much smaller. But if you go bigger, you don't have to resize the destination partition afterwords. But you need patience - Partition Saving is horribly slow (more than twice Ghost 2001). I tried it once and fell into the "forgot to defrag" trap. The old Ghost (the one that creates ".GHO" image files) does this trick transparently (without the defrag step). I don't know if the defrag step would help other imaging programs. Have'nt tested yet.

[Lixorer]

Partition Saving really can restore to a smaller partition. It took about 5 minutes to get a compressed image but it was compressed with the highest possible ratio. In any case, I'm not going to restore images very often.
Meantime, I found out that an OS installed on Virtual PC doesn't use the same drivers as an OS installed on my real PC (i.e. drivers for my hardware). And it's hardly advisable to restore an image with inappropriate drivers, isn't it? I wonder if an OS installed on a VMware drive would use different drivers too?

[Paul Komski]

Virtual PCs have virtual BIOS and so any installation is dependent on the Virtual Motherboard and not the real motherboard of the PC proper. So yes there will be different drivers etc etc. Even though running on your PC it is not your PC but a virtual PC and so any imaging done on it is unique to the VM just as it would not match an image file of a system partition on another physical PC.

As mentioned earlier, apart from testing out imaging software, there is no real need to make images for restoration purposes since it is much easier to just copy the virtual HDD file from within the real installation of Windows.

[Lixorer]

As mentioned earlier, apart from testing out imaging software, there is no real need to make images for restoration purposes since it is much easier to just copy the virtual HDD file from within the real installation of Windows.

I see it. My first idea was to restore an image with a tuned OS, installed divers and software. But it's not a problem to install an OS and software once more, for VM. And there's no need (or possibility) to install drivers at all.
It's very handy to have another OS running on a VM. But the fact that real hardware is not present in the VM somewhat limits it's possibilities for software testing purposes.
Thank you.