Tator

Free or Paid version?

I'm interested to hear if you see those errors with the latest EaseUS. I've never experienced those errors with any imaging app.

UEFI or MBR system?

Tator

Tator wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2016 at 10:31am:

Well--the *rest of the story*!

I think that may suggest where a potential problem could be generated. 

There are a lot of *potential* variables:

1.  What software was used to partition and format the original *failing* drive?,   What software was used to partition and format the *new* HDD? 

2.  If the partitioning software brand was the same, was it the *same* program, or same *version*?  Or was as newer version used on the new HDD?

3.  Was the new HDD an exact same brand as the original, same total size, manufactured on or about the same date as the failed HDD?  Manufacturers change the firmware of HDD's frequently--was that the same on both drives?

Tator wrote on Nov 11^th, 2016 at 5:54pm:

Whenever I see a statement like that, my first question is always *what changed just before the problem(s) started*?

From your most recent post as to what you are attempting--for sure the actual hardware has changed!

I'm not familiar with the EaseUS imaging software.  You made the following statement:

Tator wrote on Nov 11^th, 2016 at 5:54pm:

You have made it sound like *you* have to take care of recreating the partition and formatting it manually after EaseUS has deleted the original partition that you had created.  It seems like if a program is going to restore an image, and as part of the process, it's going to erase the existing partition, then it should *automatically* take care of partition recreation and the image should dictate the file system formatting that needs to be done!  Something doesn't sound quite right!

Most (not all) imaging programs will *resize* an image to fit the space that it is being restored to--unless you have specifically forced the program to only restore to the *exact* same destination size.  Apparently EaseUS does not think the partition you are restoring to is an *exact* match based on the error message.

If EaseUS is supposed to be able to resize the image on the fly, then I would make the space that I'm trying to restore the image to to be *unallocated* space, and then point the restore to that space and let EaseUS do all the work (you may have to specifically tell EaseUS to do the resizing), and see how that works.

Tator wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2016 at 10:31am:

Be aware, there can be incompatibility issues either with going forward or backward with an image created by a different versions of the imaging software.  Usually, images created by newer versions of imaging software can not be restored using an older version of the software.  But, unless you have evidence that older images can be restored by the newer software version--don't assume it will be okay!

Let us know what you find out.

Tator

So, I have done some digging around on the EaseUS website to try to better understand the product.

Whew--that website is not super friendly to find what one is looking for--at least not for me!

Here's the main website for their imaging software:  EaseUS Backup & Recovery Solution

To find the User Guide, click on *Support* at the top of the page, then on the *Self-Service Options* click on the *User Guide*, and you will end up  Here:  *User guide*--there will be a list of their various product user guides in pdf format.  If I click on one of them, it opens in my browser like this:  EaseUS Todo Backup User Guide.  To download it I need to *right click* and select *Save Link As ...*, and then select where to save it.

But, you will not easily find what version this Guide is for.  If you go to the Product page, EaseUS Todo Backup Free you will see that the page title says *EaseUS Todo Backup Free 9.2*, and I assume that the *9.2* is the current version!  I am assuming that the User Guide is also for that version--actually if you look at the pdf file link, it has that *V9.2* in it--so I think I'm good for that assumption!

Boy, that's just like pulling teeth to have to look that hard to find information about a product!

So, if you have installed EaseUS ToDo Backup, then you can check the image file using the *Check Image* feature.  Apparently you have to do that manually after creating an image if you want to verify if an image file is valid--does not look like you can make that part of the backup process to do it as an all in one solution.  See here in the User Guide:  Check Image

Hiding near the end of the User Guide, is a stand alone utility called the *EaseUS Todo Backup Image Explorer*, an image tool that you can install on one's system without loading the entire EaseUS program.  You can look at the information here:  Image Tool

I could not find a download listing anywhere on the website--only the download link in the pdf file:  Todo Backup Image Explorer download

It's never stated as such, but I suspect if you can load an image file with this stand alone utility, then most likely the image file is not corrupt and is usable for restoring.

I'm not sure about this, but I thought a *Sector by Sector* operation put certain restraints on how one can use an image or clone operation.  My recollection is that *resizing* was not allowed, but in this User Guide they talk about making backups and restoring using a *Sector by Sector* mode, and also talk about being able to edit the final disk partition size(s).  I'm not sure that is correct--anyone know about that?

I saw only one place where the *Sector by Sector* mode limited resizing--and that was under the section on cloning the entire disk--see here:  See the *Note*

There are references to resizing a partition when restoring an image--all the samples I found in the User Guide were for expanding the original size taken from the original source drive and making it *bigger*--I saw no example where it says you can go the other way with this software--i.e. making a partition smaller on a destination drive or partition from the original.  I could not find anything that said you couldn't--just nothing either that said you could!

Bottom line--

I think you should use one of the image tools to verify the image file.

I would not use a sector by sector mode restore.

I would make the destination partition you wish to restore to *noticeably larger* than the original source partition if you want to avoid a size mismatch issue--unless you are restoring to the original source partition.

A few months ago I installed the latest EaseUS Todo Backup version 9.2 and have tested it a few times since.  It is a little faster than the 8.0 version I was using, restores version 8.0 images with no problem, and there have been no failure to restore images or any other issues thus far. 

One thing I learned using the 8.0 version is that it's necessary to do the image creation sector by sector, or the image creation will fail except for very small partition sizes, less than 8GB.  This is also true of the new 9.2 version.

I've not tried restoring an image to a partition smaller than the source partition that NightOwl mentions in reply #7 and can't imagine a situation where I'd want to do that.  All my backup/restore has been from/to partitions of equal size or restore target partition greater in size than the source partition.

Tator

Tator wrote on May 14^th, 2017 at 10:12am:


I suggest "TeraByte Drive Image Backup and Restore Suite". There is a 4 week fully functional trial.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm

It seems I was premature in assuming Macrium Reflect Free was a good backup program.  It's fast and easy to use, and I had 4 consecutive backups and restores.  However, just recently I had 3 consecutive bad restores of Win10 partition, i.e. the restored partition failed to boot on all 3 attempts.  I ran diagnostics on the hard drive and tested the memory, and no problems were found.

I began backing up systems with Ghost 2003 and have used Seagate Discwizard and other imaging programs over the years, and I never had a problem with a restored image unless there was some hardware issues like bad memory or a failing hard drive.  Macrium Reflect is totally unacceptable imo.