SSR "resize restored drive" left an unallocated partition at front of drive and put my data at the end?

[BJB]

I just completed a bare metal/boot environment restore using SSR2013.  It was a 700GB image of a 750GB drive being restored to a 2TB drive.

First, I used the boot disc as based on drive letter arrangement and windows using that drive for default locations for various folders, I did not want to boot windows without that drive in there.

I made an independent full drive image and restored via the boot disc.  As it was a data drive, I selected "Restore Disk Signature" and "Resize restored drive". FWIW I found tech bulletin 53848 helpful with the options even though this really was for a RAO restore.

I expected to get 700GB of data on a single partition on my new drive with around 1.2TB or so free space. (I fully understand there are minor differences here in 2TB vs. useful space, not the issue here.)

Anyway, my first restore created a blank unallocated partition at the FRONT of the drive totalling around the size of the original image, then at the end of the drive, it put a 1.2TB partition with the data in it!  As you may know windows disk management cannot expand partitions to the LEFT only the right.So rather than messing around with a partition manager, I had another blank drive and just did another restore without checking ""Resize restored drive" and it put the 700GB at the front of the drive and windows expanded it easily.

Two questions. Why did it do this???  Even the oldest versions of Ghost could easily restore an image and expand the drive in one operation consistently. 

Second.  I need to use that first disk I restore to when I restore another drive shortly.  If I just delete that second partition SSR created, when I use it for another restore, will SSR see it as a 2TB drive with 2TB (or so) of unallocated space and will a restore wipe out any vestiges of the errant restore of the other drive?  Or do I need to write zeroes or something or wipe the first track?  I really, really, don't lilke using those tools or a DOS prompt to delete stuff when I have other hard drives plugged into a computer.....if I can just plug that drive into a docking station and use windows management to delete the partitions, that would be okay.

This restore will also be a data disk so I will use similar settings as the above.

Thanks for the help.

BJB

[Markus_Koestler]

Can you open a support case for this?

[criley]

I'm looking into this. Will update you on my findings soon ....

[criley]

Anyway, my first restore created a blank unallocated partition at the FRONT of the drive totalling around the size of the original image, then at the end of the drive, it put a 1.2TB partition with the data in it!

I cannot reproduce this, it worked fine for me. What value was in the box for 'Resize restored drive'?

Can you also confirm the version details of SSR you are using (check in Help/About for version information).

[BJB]

Markus/Chris,

Thanks for the response.  Just let me know what you want me to do.  Based on Chris's response I will sit tight for now.

Good news is that CHKDSK was clean so I think my current restore is good. 

Glad you are looking into what caused the first outcome as I have another disk to restore eventually.  Also still still need to know if I can just delete that partition from the first failed attempt to re-use that drive.

Thanks again,

BJB
 

[BJB]

Chris,

I will get the exact version I am running tonight. I am pretty sure it is the most current, non-beta version.

I set the resize box at the highest amount it would let me.  And I thought it was strange that it was not closer to the 2TB total of the drive when I selected it....like 1.8TB or however the math works.  It was like 1290365MB or something.  I am making that number up but basically it made what it said it would, a parition around 1.2TB. And I think I remember the numbers above the box saying something like 7XX-1XXX or something.  Which again I thought was strange as it should have been ONE to the end of the drive.   I will look because I either took a picture of that screen or the windows disk management screen after the fact. 

I can tell you at the end of the restore, when it was doing the partition expansion, it said on the screen it was MOVING my data which I thought was strange.  It should have just said it was expanding the partition.

Now this should not matter but try going forward in the wizard to the next screen, then back to the screen where you can hit "edit" and make your selections for unallocated space, etc.  I do know that I went "back" to double check my settings.  Again, I don't think this should make any difference but my setup was pretty straighforward.  An independant image of a single drive with a single primary partition, imaging it to a brand new drive.

Thanks,

BJB
 

[BJB]

The boot disk I used was SSR 2013 SP2 64 bit and was genrated from the file SSR11.0249853_allWin_64Bit_English_SRDOnly on 3/29/14.

BJB

[criley]

I set the resize box at the highest amount it would let me.  And I thought it was strange that it was not closer to the 2TB total of the drive when I selected it....like 1.8TB or however the math works.  It was like 1290365MB or something.  I am making that number up but basically it made what it said it would, a parition around 1.2TB.

I believe it should automatically populate the box with the entire size of the available space on the disk. So perhaps SSR is not correctly detecting the 2TB drive?? When you try the restore in Windows (not using the recovery disk), what size is the disk listed as on the 'Target Drive' screen of the recover drive wizard?

Unfortunately I do not have access to a drive of this size so you may need to open a support case to continue investigations on this.

[BJB]

Chris,

I just spent 20 minutes trying to create a support case for this.

On the "new case" form, hitting "next" kept inserting random html or something into the text box and it would not proceed.

I gave up.  Hopefully this bug can be forwarded along internally.

At this point I give up.  If you could just answer the question about deleting the partitions on the first drive I used (to re-use for my next restore) that would be great. But i've provided all the information I can above.

Thanks.

BJB