Restoring Winclone image to a different size Bootcamp partition?

Due to some ongoing problems with my WIndows 10 Bootcamp installation (self inflicted problems), I found it necessary to blow away my entire machine (Including Siera OS) and re-build my MacBook Air with Bootcamp from scratch. The Siera install went fine. I then created a bootcamp partition as 348 gb - the same size as I had done previously. I used an older Windows 10 iso to do that install. All went as planned - until…

I then made a Winclone 6 image backup just to be safe. Attempted to install my older Winclone image (block-by-block backup) and noticed that the older Winclone image files says “348.12 GB” where the new image says “348.05 GB”. My experience with Acronis in prior PC image backup/restore was that the partition size was not critical as long as it was big enough to accommodate the image. Perhaps WinClone is more particular?

The restore process seemed normal but when it displayed “Restoring” it never showed any progress. I gave it 90 minutes without any sign of progress. It continued to say “Restoring”. Eventually I attempted to Cancel - but could not get its attention. Ultimately I forced a power down and restarted. First attempt to boot to Bootcamp failed. It just never booted… Again I powered it down. Second attempt booted Windows 10 fine - but no sign of the latest restore.

My question is this. Is it a requirement that the Bootcamp partition be “precisely” the same as the partition that was present when an image was created in order to be able to restore it without issues?

On a hunch I found a way to restore my older winclone backup images. I recreated the Bootcamp partition slightly larger than the largest backed up partition - and was able to restore an older (smaller) image to it. Am not certain whether it now utilizes the disk space that falls between the size of the old image and the size I created Bootcamp to be. But worst case I’ve lost track of about 1gb out of 500gb.

It would be excellent if Winclone could restore to any sized bootcamp partition that is large enough to hold the active, expanded portion of the backup image. Perhaps the next version?

You are correct that the new Boot Camp partition needs to be the same size or larger as the prior file system. You can use the “shrink filesystem” tool under the Tools menu on the Boot Camp partition prior to creating the image so that you can restore it on different sized volumes. Winclone does do a check to make sure the partition is large enough, but it sounds like you discovered an issue when it is just a hair too small. I’ll investigate further.

As for the missing 1GB, Winclone does expand the filesystem to use the entire partition on restore, so you should be using the 1GB that you allocated to the new Boot Camp partition.

tim