I have a 500 GB drive that I have made a system image of.
I would like to move that to a 250 GB drive (because it is a Solid State drive).
I have made a Windows 7 Backup Image of my 500 GB drive. I am currently only using 163 GB of that drive. Can I just restore that to the target drive or will the restore be expecting a 500 GB drive?
If it is expecting it I can shrink my partition to less that 250 and backup again. But I would rather not if that is not needed. Will the restore realize that it is not using all the space and just take what it needs?
Best Answer
You cannot move the image to a smaller partition space using W7 image software, you will need a 3rd party image software to do this.
http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7repair/thread/91f3faf8-3a41-498f-972d-29d95a06e29b
Free imaging software http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
Since you are moving to a SSD, it would be wise to install W7 clean and transfer your data using Windows Easy transfer, first run easy transfer on your older installation to back up your data, then run it again on the clean install on the new drive to import that data.
Programs will need to be reinstalled.
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