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R-Drive Image Technical Documentation

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Index

Restore Data from an Image

Note: You may read about Support for Various Disk Partition Schemes and File Systems to learn more about possible options for your specific case.

We recommend you stop all other programs before you start restoring data on a partition.

Note: Go to the Restoring Data to a System or Other Locked Disk topic if you want to learn how to restore data to system disk s.

You may restore data from images for entire disk objects or restore only selected files .

Restoring partitions and entire disks

To restore data from an image to a disk/partition:

1	Click Restore Image on the Action Selection panel.

R-Drive Image will start analyzing the computer disk configuration, the Progress... message showing the progress. Then R-Drive Image will show you the Choose image file panel with the disks/folder structure.

2	Select the file with the image on the Choose image file panel and click the Next button

In addition to the rdr native file format, R-Drive Image support several virtual disk and disk image formats .

Click the controls to learn their functions or go to the respective help pages

When you click the file, you may view its content in the right panel.

More information...

You may also restore data directly from Windows explorer by right-clicking the required image file with the .rdr extension and selecting Restore Image from the shortcut menu.

If you select an image with incremental or differential data backup, select the date and time of image creation and click the Next button.

If the image file is password-protected, the Password prompt... message will appear. Enter the password and click the OK button.

3	Select the object in the image file on the Image Object Selection panel, select a destination, and click the Next button

Use the Refresh button if your computer disk configuration has been changed (when you connect a USB disk, for example).

R-Drive Image may show only those disks that you wand to see.

You may select all objects on a hard drive by clicking the hard drive icon .. It will show the marked hard drive .

You may select only one object at a time, and you need to specify the destination to proceed further.

S.M.A.R.T. warning for a hard drive

More information...

If the chosen destination is smaller than the selected image, R-Drive Image will show the Destination disk is too small message and you will need to select another destination.

If you select several partitions as the destination, R-Drive Image will show the You have selected several partitions... message. If you click the OK button, all those partitions will be deleted and data will be restored on that free space .

Note: Although R-Drive Image shows unallocated space instead of the deleted partitions, the partitions and their data will be actually deleted only when R-Drive Image starts restoring the data from the image.

Selected Object and Destination

5	Specify restore parameters on this panel and click the Next button

You may change create/copy/modify parameters on the Create partition , Copy partition , or Modify partition panel. Click the Create / Copy Options / Modify button, respectively.

Create/Copy Partition Parameters

Partition ing scheme	The type of partition ing scheme . See Support for Various Disk Partition Schemes and File Systems for the list of supported partition types.
Partition type	Primary (Active)/ Primary/Logical You may specify the type of the partition to be restored. Do not change this setting unless you have serious reasons to do so.
File system	You may select the file system for the partition to be restored.
Allocation unit size	It is the size of a disk block, that is, the minimum allocatable disk space. (only on the Create partition panel.)
Volume label	Label of this volume. You can change it.
Drive letter	Select the letter that will be assigned to the partition. You may select "Do not connect" if you do not want to connect this partition to your system. Or "Do not modify" it you do not want to change the drive letter.
Partition size	Minimum/maximum size of the partition to be restored.
Free space before	You may specify the size of free space that will be left on the hard drive before the beginning of the partition.
Partition size	You may specify the size of the partition to be restored. Should be between the minimum and maximum partition size.
Free space after	You may specify the size of free space that will be left on the hard drive after the end of the partition.
	You may visually adjust the location and size of the object to be restored. All other restore options will be adjusted accordingly. Also, when you adjust one or several restore options directly, these changes will be shown visually. Green marks available space. See Support for Various Disk Partition Schemes and File Systems for the list of supported file systems.

You may format a disk if necessary. Click the Format button and select the format parameters on the Format partition panel.

Format partition options

You may also delete or wipe selected disk object by clicking the Delete button. Click the Clear HDD or Wipe button if you want to delete all object on the hard drive or wipe its data. Go to the Partition Manager help page for more details..

The Restore/Copy Parameters panel will be different with different sets of options:

HDD Copy Method
Raw disk copy	R-Drive Image writes sector-by-sector the data from the original drive or its image to the target one making an exact copy of the original disk regardless of its partitioning method. Can be used if other methods create a non-bootable disk due to incorrect detection of drive's geometry or non-standard loader. Drawback: partition sizes cannot be changed.
Copy all partitions onto original places	R-Drive Image copies all partitions to their original places. If R-Drive Image detects the drive's geometry correctly, and there is no non-standard loader, it makes the same result as during Raw disk copy .
Realign partitions	R-Drive Image will copy the partitions on the disk with a 512KB alignment. This is very useful for SSD and advanced- formatted disks. If there are empty (non-used) spaces between partitions, those spaces will be removed taking into account the alignment.
Expand/Shrink partition to whole disk	If there are empty (not-used) places between the partitions or they occupy less or more space than the target drive, R-Drive Image proportionally expands/shrinks them to occupy the entire target drive. Otherwise it is similar to Copy all partitions onto original places .
Fixed active partition	R-Drive Image preserves the original offset/size of the active partition (in case the loader has links to it).

See Support for Various Disk Partition Schemes and File Systems for details.

When you restore data from an image of a system disk, a disk signature collision may occur. In this case, the Disk Signature Collision panel will appear. You may specify the way to resolve this collision on this panel.

Disk Signature Collision Resolving
Same signature for both disk	R-Drive Image will create an identical copy of the source disk with the same signature. To avoid disk signature collision , you'll have to disconnect one of the disks and restart the computer, if necessary. Use this mode if you clone a system disk for another computer or only the target disk will be used in yours.
Different signature on the target disk.	R-Drive Image will write another disk signature to the target disk. Don’t use this mode if you clone a system disk, Windows won’t start from it. To get access to the target disk after cloning, you’ll have to restart the computer or re-connect it if it’s an external USB disk.
Change the disk signature on the source disk.	R-Drive Image will change the disk signature on the source disk. Use this mode if you want to start Windows from the target disk, but be warned: the computer won’t start from the source disk anymore.

If you try to restore data to a system or other disk locked by the system or other application, the Disk not locked message will appear.

To continue restoring you may:

• If you restore data to your system disk , select Restart computer (recommended) to continue restoring the data in the R-Drive Image startup mode. Read carefully the Restoring Data to a System Disk topic before you proceed.

• If you restore data to a disk locked by other low-level disk software (including Windows internal services) , stop this software and select Retry to lock the disk once again.

• You may also try to unlock the disk by selecting Force Windows to unlock the disk (not recommended) . If Windows fails to unlock the disk, the Disk not locked message will appear again. You will need to stop the software locking the disk manually or select Restart computer (recommended) to continue restoring the data in the R-Drive Image startup mode .

Note: Use this option cautiously, because it may cause unpredictable results including system crash and data loss.

6	Verify that the information on the Processing panel is correct and click the Start button

You may also create a script for this action. Click the Script to Clipboard button and paste the script to any text-processing utility .

>	R-Drive Image will start restoring the data from the image file to the selected destination.

When the image is restored, the Image restored successfully message will appear.

If some other program (like a file manager) is accessing the partition on which the data is to be restored, the Cannot lock the disk message will appear. Close this program or make it stop accessing the partition.

If you restore data from an image of an entire hard drive to an entire hard drive, the system may not see the restored partitions until restarted. In this case R-Drive Image will show the Disk image restored successfully. message. Click the Yes button to restart your system.

Restoring data from CD-R/RW drives or other devices with removable storage

For the image with the file name filename.rdr , R-Drive Image creates the following disk/file structure:
Disk	File name
The first disk	filename1.rdr
The second disk	filename2.rdr
The third disk	filename3.rdr
...	...
You should start restoring the data from the last disk. Each time R-Drive Image requires a new disk, the Insert disk #... message will appear. Insert the necessary disk and click the OK button. Follow the device instructions on how to change its disks. Note : At the beginning, R-Drive Image may require you to change the first/last disks several times.

Bad Sectors

When R-Drive Image encounters a bad sector, the IO Error message will appear. You may either cancel the current action or fill the bad sectors with zeros.

IO Error Options

Abort	Click this button to cancel the action
Retry	Click this button to try to read the bad sectors once again
Ignore	Click this button to skip this error and fill the bad sectors with zeros
Ignore All	Click this button to skip all errors and fill the bad sectors with zeros

Restoring selected files and folders

(See Support for Various Disk Partition Schemes and File Systems for the list of supported file systems)

1	Click Restore Image on the Action Selection panel

2	Select the file with the image on the Choose image file panel and click the Next button

When you click the file, you may view its content in the right panel.

If you select an image with incremental or differential data backup, select the date and time of image creation and click the Next button

If the image file is password-protected, the Password prompt... message will appear. Enter the password and click the OK button.

3	Select the object in the image file on the Image Object Selection pane where the files and folders reside, and click the Next button

4	Mark folders and files to restore on the Select Files to Restore panel, specify the output folder, and click the OK button

You may also specify Options that specifies paths for restored files, control processing of already existing files, and what to do with file attributes.

You may search for individual files , use filters , or the Batch mode if you want to include all files of several patterns. Such patterns may include multiple file names, masks, and paths.

5	Click the Next button to continue file restore on the Image Object Selection panel.

6	Verify that the information on the Processing panel is correct and click the Start button

You may also create a script for this action. Click the Script to Clipboard button and paste the script to any text-processing utility.

>	R-Drive Image will start restoring the files from the image file to the selected destination.

If the files already exist in the specified folder, The file exists message will appear. Click the necessary button to resume the restore operation.

When the image is restored, the Files restored successfully message will appear.

The Disk Actions chapter explains basic disk actions.

The Startup Version chapter explains how to perform disk actions using the R-Drive Image Startup Version .

The Technical Information chapter gives technical information on Supported CD and DVD Recorders and List of Hardware Devices Supported in the Startup Mode and another useful technical information.

Follow this link to obtain R-Drive Image Contact Information and Technical Support

Data Recovery Articles

PC Privacy Articles

Home > Disk Actions > Restore Data from an Image

Restore Data from an Image

More information...

R-Drive Image may show only those disks that you wand to see.

More information...

Create/Copy Partition Parameters

Format partition options

To continue restoring you may:

Restoring data from CD-R/RW drives or other devices with removable storage

Bad Sectors

Home > Disk Actions > Restore Data from an Image