Ssd too small for system image.

I have an old computer running Win 10 Pro. I noticed I was getting disk errors so I ordered a new 120GB SSD to replace it.
I was going to do one of three things.
Option 1. Insert new drive and use 3rd party software to clone the drive with the OS
Option 2. Make a system image and use that on the new SSD.
Option 3. Extract license and install fresh copy of Win 10.

While waiting on the new drive to arrive I made a system image. Since then the old drive has failed completely. That rules out options 1 and 3.
I installed the new drive and tried to run system image on it. I get this error "Error details: The disk that is set as active in BIOS is too small to recover the original system disk. Replace the disk with a larger one and retry the restore operation."

Is there any other option I might try? I did read somewhere that system image will take a snapshot of partitions etc and restore that so you need a drive that is equal to or greater in size for this to work. Is this correct?

TIA

I don't think a failed hard drive would prevent you from doing a fresh install of Windows 10.

Assuming you don't want to do that anyway, answers to these questions would help:

What application did you use to make the system image?

What was the size of the C partition on the failed drive?

What was the size of the occupied space on the C partition on the failed drive?

What partitions do you think you included in that system image?

What is the size in gigabytes of that system image file?

What application did you use to make the system image?

Windows 10 inbuilt "Backup and restore-create system image"

What was the size of the C partition on the failed drive?

Unsure

What was the size of the occupied space on the C partition on the failed drive?

Unsure

What partitions do you think you included in that system image?

C and a system reserve I think

What is the size in gigabytes of that system image file?

About 24GB

I know virtually nothing about Windows 10 built in backup/imaging, but I wouldn't think a 24 gb image file would balk at being restored to a 120 gb drive, but Windows 10 backup could be weird in that way. It could be that you made an error and did not include all of the partitions necessary to restore with that app. Most people here have given up on Windows 10 built-in backup, such as it is.

I use Macrium, which wouldn't have any such issue.

I don't think Win 10 has a "system reserved" partition....that is Win 7 lingo.

But, as I said in my first post, I wouldn't think a failed hard drive would prevent you from doing a clean install of Windows 10. You shouldn't have to "extract" anything.

Let others comment.

You never ever restore a system image from a failing hard drive as it can permantly write bad blocks to the new drive and you dont know what files are corrupt. Remove all paritions and do a clean install

ignatzatsonic said:

I know virtually nothing about Windows 10 built in backup/imaging, but I wouldn't think a 24 gb image file would balk at being restored to a 120 gb drive...

There I have the advantage over you, having used it extensively for many years*. Backup & Restore's 'create a system image' is inflexible and has no user options to speak of. The image may be only 24GB, but it is an image of a partition and the size of the partition is specified in that image. It is not possible with Backup & Restore to resize a partition image to fit on a smaller drive.

@tomfromoz is correct.....

tomfromoz said:

I did read somewhere that system image will take a snapshot of partitions etc and restore that so you need a drive that is equal to or greater in size for this to work.

There are two possible approaches to restoring this system image that would get around Backup & Restore's (severe) limitations. The first (and simplest) would be to restore to a larger drive. Any old 'spinner' HDD would do for this purpose, it just has to be large enough. Then make a Macrium image of the restored system. Then restore that image to the smaller SSD. Macrium can resize partitions.

The other is more complicated technically, but should be possible...

...A system image backup actually created a virtual hard drive (.vhd) for each of the drives you select. You can zap the contents back onto the real hard drive to restore it.

Restoring a system image backup on Windows 7 when system recovery fails | Tim Andersons IT Writing

tomfromoz said:

Option 3. Extract license and install fresh copy of Win 10.

Actually, you don't need the key from the old system to do a clean install. Your PC has a digital license stored on Microsoft's activation servers and linked to the hardware ID of the PC. Microsoft have said the hard drive is not part of this ID, so you are free to replace it. As long as you install the same edition you had before (Home or Pro) you can skip entering a key when asked. As soon as the PC can contact the activation servers it will activate from the existing digital license.


* from 2015 up to mid 2018 it was my exclusive method for making/restoring system images on my test machine, System Two below.

The key point is it's an image of a faulty drive which may be corrupted and put bad blocks on the new drive

I am a Macrium Reflect person but I did the Backup & Restore Windows 7 process as an experiment on my test computer.

On your external hard drive there is a folder for the system image backup you created


If you also saved your data, you should also see a folder similar to this

--- Do you have that on the external HDD?
--- It appears to me you should be able to at least save your data as I was able to do so.

If you are concerned about your disk you should immediately use ddrescue first to copy it as-is.

Then once you have done that you can think about repairing, restoring, running recovery software or chkdisk or whatever.