Macrium wont work unless I resize the OS partition?

Is the used space on the source greater than the available space on the target?

If so, you can't restore the image to the smaller target.

There are some ways to reduce the used space on the source before imaging. Cleaning out junk, deleting stuff you don't want is one method.

Another way is to exclude files/folders from the image that you don't need to transfer to the target. Only a few imaging programs can exclude files/folders from images and/or "clones".

O&O diskimage has that function, so does partition guru.

sdowney717 said:

Dont assume I know anything about words.
I just tried following this here
https://forum.macrium.com/Topic3908.aspx

It just always says insufficient space on destination drive. Even though that poster says it adjusts automatically.

I dont know what to do.

O&O Diskimage:




Disk Genius ( also called partition guru)

SIW2 said:

Is the used space on the source greater than the available space on the target?

If so, you can't restore the image to the smaller target.

There are some ways to reduce the used space on the source before imaging. Cleaning out junk, deleting stuff you don't want is one method.

Another way is to exclude files/folders from the image that you don't need to transfer to the target. Only a few imaging programs can exclude files/folders from images and/or "clones".

O&O diskimage has that function, so does partition guru.

How do you define used space? It is a 1 TB drive, it is partitioned pretty much all the way to 1 TB. The data on the drive is 180gb, but the unused space is still part of the 1 tb partition. I wish I had known the image was waste of time, would have saved 6 hours.

rt click the source and select properties. That will tell you the amount of used space.

If the used space is less than the size of the target, then pretty much all imaging programs I am aware of should be able to do the restore. Unless you selected to image all sectors by mistake.

Mooly said:

It may be possible to do what you want but isn't a clone a clone, a bit perfect image

That used to be what clone meant.

However the word "clone" has recently been used to mean "copying" from one volume to another. Most programs that do it nowadays will copy used sectors only by default, and will often make other changes to disk signature, automatically exclude system volume info etc.

If you want a true clone - something like clonezilla boot disc can do it.

O&O has an option called "Direct Forensic Clone". I haven't tested that function, but if it means what I think it does - that can only work properly if done from booted media.

Maybe a clue might be to look at the size of the image file that Macrium created. 180Gb of data is going to come out considerably smaller than that, perhaps around 120Gb for a normal compressed image file.

The image file was around 100gb. it took forever because the drive is failing.
Ok, I put both drives in a different PC, installed Macrium. Selected partions, then told it to copy selected partitions, and it says insufficient space.
What am I doing wrong?

How to clone your PC hard drive using Macrium Reflect | Windows Central
found this, have to adjust the partition size properties before you copy partitions.

I left out the recovery partition, dont think its needed. Then I did not have to resize anything.
So its doing the clone now.