Notebooks & Netbooks

[Mastiff]

I have scratched my head a bit here. I have an R7 with an mSATA SSD, and I use that pc for guests and "extra duties". I had another SSD go dead on my main working laptop a Friday night a few weeks ago, and I had to use the one from the R7. So I took a full image with Acronis DriveImage of the SSD when it came out of the R7 and then put the backup (luckily I always have current backups of everything) of my work computer onto the SSD. So the weekend work was saved (yeah, pretty pathetic to be happy to be able to work in the weekens, but sometimes you must...

I got a new, smaller SSD for the R7, no need for more than a 128, and I had a 256. And now I'm having a big problem getting the stuff back in. For some reason Acronis won't put the partitions back in such a way that I can boot from the thing. I tried to install Win 8 from the ground up, and that worked without a hitch, so there's nothing physically wrong. I would like to get it back the way it was, it takes some hours to set up a computer to my liking. Not to mention that I hate a computer that tries to fool me! So what is the correct setup with all those partitions on an R7? Flags (hidden, unhidden, active) partition type (logical/primary) and sequence? Hope somebody can help me, this is annoying!

Btw forgot to say that I called Acer support here in Norway, and I got a lady who had no idea what a hidden or active partition was... Asked to be sent to a tech support person, but they didn't have any. I've been working with computers, both as a service tech and in other ways for 25 years, and it's the first time I call something designated "tech support" (you had to choose between other types of support and tech support in the phone menu) where they have no tech knowledge in any way! They could as well have a recording: "Have you tried restarting your computer? Have you remembered to plug in the charger?"

[Acer-Tommy]

Unfortunately, Acronis is not something that we're going to be able to support.

I'm sorry you're having difficulty getting it to do what you want, but changing the SSD and using third party software are going to be outside what we can support. 

My best suggestion would have been to replace the drive in the other unit with the new one ...

[Mastiff]

Thanks, but that wasn't my question. I wasn't specifically looking for answer from an Acer tech either, more genral, if somebody had an R7 and could take a look at the partition setup. I know you won't support anything outside of the ordinary Joe Sixpack user... I have managed to get most of it back, but I'm not sure about the push button reset and the small partition before that.

[Mastiff]

Finally solved it. All primary of course (GPT disk, should have seen that one coming...), and the size could be determined from the size of the drive in the backup. I think it works now. Seems like this is a kind of problem that doesn't rally fit in an official forum... I'll get back to Notebookforums.com now.

[edited to comply with guidelines]

[miguel69]

not sure about Acronis as I use Macrium Reflect and Mini Tool Partition Wizard but the most likely problem was trying to restore a large disk to a smaller one, as a direct shot the programs don't like this.  it has to be done in steps, one partition at a time, then resizing so the next one will fit.  

NOTE: if the largest partition is bigger than the new drive you will have to find a way to make a smaller copy outside of a direct move.

example: std 4 partition config (PQservice(factory recovery)/win7recovery/OS/user data .. in that order!). first copy the largest partition to the new disk (usually the  data partition), shrink it as small as you can and place it in the order it should be in (if data at end, if OS as start), then the next larger partition (usually OS) placing it in the proper position in relation to the first one then shrink it so there is room at the start of the disk for the 2 small partitions (PQservice and win7recovery), if there is  a fair amount of free space in the PQservice partition it could be shrunk too, do NOT change the win7recovery partition. once you have all the partitions on the disk you can then adjust sizes to eliminate unassigned space.