So in Windows 7 / System Recovery Options I click on System Image Recovery. The image is loaded from a DVD (last disc of the DVD per the instructions) and I can see the HDD when I click on the "Exclude disks..." button on the "Choose additional restore options" dialog. Here's a picture of what I see:
So the hard drive exists and the OS sees it.
But... from the dialog in the screenshot, if I click "OK", then "Next >", "Finish" and "Yes" (for the "All disks to be restored will be formatted" confirmation) I get a "The system image restore failed" error. Here's a picture:
Here's what the "Details" dialog says:
Problem is... none of those explanations apply! I didn't exclude the disk, it's not a USB stick. Any ideas?
diskpart / list disk shows the disk, I can write to it when I plug it into another computer via a USB3 <-> SATA adapter, etc.
The computer I'm trying to do the restore on is an ASUS U52F. It came with a 640GB HDD but for what I'm going to be using the computer for I don't need an HDD that big so it's my intention to move the OS to a smaller HDD and repurpose the larger one.
diskpartlist partsaw both disks and they both had plenty of space per tomshardware.com/answers/id-2404649/… but it just didn't work. I just wound up using Acronis True Image. It's disappointing that the built-in product is so bad. If it's gonna be this bad why include it at all?