How to Restore Disk Image to a Larger Drive in 2 Ways

It may sound tricky to restore a disk image to a larger drive. If you have the same issue, don't worry, let's look at two working ways to do this with Windows Backup and Restore and EaseUS Todo Backup.

Restoring disk images to a larger drive is a great option to upgrade your hard drive without losing the original data. Do you know how to restore a disk image to another one? Can you directly restore disk image to larger drive? The answer is NO. When upgrading or changing the PC, you create a disk image hoping to restore it on the new drive, but you find it impossible. Everything seems alright initially, and then you see chunks of unallocated partitions on your PC.

How can we restore the disk image to a larger drive? Learn how to restore disk images to a large drive without unallocated partitions. The following content will outline two effective solutions. Now, let's have a quick glance at the two methods.

When You Need to Restore the Disk Image to a Larger Drive

Restoring disk images on drives with similar storage space is usually recommended. If you restore the disk image on a larger drive, the rest of the space becomes unallocated and unavailable.

So, if you are switching from an HDD to an SSD or a small SSD to a larger SSD, you must restore the disk image of the old drive onto the new one. When the restoration starts, the OS considers the destination drives as one and restores the disk content onto it. However, it creates the exact partition and marks the extra storage space as unallocated.

Can a Disk Image be Restored on a Drive with a Different Storage Capacity 

The answer is Yes, restoring the disk image on a drive with a different storage capacity is possible. You can do this on both large and small drives. The process is relatively easy with large drives, as you can mount the disk image and work with the extra space after extending the disk volume.

The process of restoring images on smaller drives gets tricky. You need a drive at least the size of the disk image. For example, if you have 250GB of data on a 1TB drive, you can restore the disk to a 500 GB drive. 

Now, let's restore the disk image onto a larger drive. How do we go about it? After restoring the image, the OS creates unallocated space, restricting users from accessing it. So, we extend the volume to store data and perform operations.

🎯Extend Reading: Restore System Image from External Hard Drive | Transfer Disk Image to New Hard Drive

How to Restore Disk Image to a Larger Drive - 2 Working Ways

Before restoring the disk image to a larger drive, you need a USB or hard drive to save the backup image. You may also need a CD/DVD to create a system repair disc.

Solution 1. Restore disk image with EaseUS Todo Backup

The best method to avoid unallocated spaces when restoring disk images to a larger drive is to use EaseUS Todo Backup. EaseUS Todo Backup's System Transfer allows you to restore the disk image to the new drive, regardless of the size. You only need a USB drive to store the system repair disc and image for recovery later.

The best part about EaseUS Todo Backup is that it is much more than a backup tool. In addition to advanced backup solutions, you can clone drives, create system images, sync hard drives, schedule backups, and more. Get EaseUS Todo Backup now and restore the disk image without worrying about the size.

Part 1. Create a system disk image with EaseUS Todo Backup

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Todo Backup on your computer, and click Create Backup on the home screen and then hit the big question mark to select backup contents.

Step 2. To back up your Windows operating system, click "OS" to begin the backup task.

Step 3. Your Windows operating system information and all system related files and partitions will be automatically selected so you don't need to do any manual selection at this step. Next, you'll need to choose a location to save the system image backup by clicking the illustrated area.

Step 4. The backup location can be another local drive on your computer, an external hard drive, network, cloud or NAS. Generally, we recommend you use an external physical drive or cloud to preserve the system backup files. 

Step 5. Customiztion settings like enabling an automatic backup schedule in daily, weekly, monthly, or upon an event, and making a differential and incremental backup are available in the Options button if you're interested. Click "Backup Now", and the Windows system backup process will begin. The completed backup task will display on the left side in a card style.

Part 2. Restore disk image to a larger drive easily

* To perform system recovery on a none-bootable machine, try to boot the computer through the EaseUS Todo Backup emergency disk.

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Todo Backup, click "Browse to Recover".

Step 2. Guide to your backup destination, choose the system backup file you need. (The backup file created by EaseUS Todo Backup is a pbd file.)

Step 3. Choose the recovery disk. Make sure that the partition style of the source disk and the recovery disk are the same.

Step 4. You can customize the disk layout according to your needs. Then click "Proceed" to start system backup recovery.

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Solution 2. Restore disk image with Backup and Restore(Windows 7)

As the name suggests, Backup and Restore (Windows 7) allows you to create and restore disk images on external hard drives. It is built-in software to create file and folder backups and system images to recover failing Windows from hard disk problems, data corruptions, and malware. 

If you wish to restore the disk image with Windows and Restore, it will create two problems. The software is outdated compared to the current standards, and the other extends the unallocated volume after restoring the image.

Let's use Backup and Restore(Windows 7) to restore a disk image.

Part 1. Create Windows 10/11 system images with Backup and Restore(Windows 7)

1. Search for the Control Panel and open it.

2. Open Backup and Restore(Windows 7), and click Create a system image.

3. Select the external drive (external hard drive or USB flash drive) to save the disk image, and click Next.

4. Confirm the required settings and click Start Backup.

After Windows creates a backup, it prompts an option to create a system repair disc. The repair disk provides recovery options when the computer fails to boot from the image. Generally, CDs/DVDs are typically used as repair disks, but you can also use USB flash drives. Click Yes to continue.

Part 2. Restore Windows Disk image on Larger Drive

Now, we will see the steps to restore the disk image to a larger drive. We will use the Windows 10 system image recovery tool of the Windows recovery environment to restore the Windows image backup.

1. Shut down the PC. Now, you must switch the hard drive to the new one and connect the disk to the Windows 10/11 image. Also, the system repair disk is required.

2. Boot the PC from the system repair disk. Invoke BIOS settings and change the boot to the CD/DVD or USB flash drive containing the repair disc with the arrow keys.

3. Click Next when the Windows Setup window appears, and navigate to Repair your computer > Troubleshoot >Advanced options > System Image Recovery > Windows 10 or Windows 11. Choose the Windows version. 

4. The "Re-image your computer" window appears. Check the Use the latest available system image and continue.

5. Choose Format and Repartition Disks options, and click Next > Finish and Yes to restore the Windows image to another drive.

Part 3. Extend Partition/Volume after Disk Image Restore

As discussed earlier, restoring the Windows image to a larger drive marks the rest of the storage as unallocated. You need to extend the partition size to make the unallocated space usable. Here's how.

1. Open the Run dialog box (Windows + R), enter diskmgmt.msc, and press OK.

2. This action opens the Disk Management on your computer, and you can see the unallocated partition on the screen.

3. Right-click on the unallocated partition, and tap Extend Volume. 

4. On the Extend Volume Wizard, click Next. The features know all the details of the unallocated partition. If it is not selected, click  Select the disk you want to extend the partition and finish the process.

The unallocated space is added to the main drive and available for use. This method works for most cases except for one. The technique is not helpful if you have a recovery partition or other partition between the system and unallocated partitions. You will have to edit the partition sizes to fix it.

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Written In the End

Restoring Disk Images to a large drive has disadvantages. Learn how to restore a Disk Image to large drive with Windows Backup and Restore (Windows 7) and EaseUS Todo Backup. Backup and Restore require you to do everything manually, while EaseUS Todo Backup makes it easy to create and restore the system image on a larger drive.

We strongly recommend EaseUS Todo Backup because it ensures a safe and quick disk image restore without any hassle. Download and give it a shot, and you won't be disappointed.

FAQs on Restoring Disk Image to Larger Drives

1. Can you restore a system image to a smaller drive?

If the target disk is smaller than the system image drive, you will likely receive a failed system image restore error. The alternative is to use a professional tool to create an image with the sectors used and fix it.

2. How do I replace my C drive with a bigger drive?

Clone or transfer data on the C drive to a bigger drive and replace the C drive. Now, boot your computer from the new SSD to switch on the PC.

3. What is the difference between disk image and clone?

While the result makes a one-to-one copy of the hard drive, the disk image and clone are distinct processes. Cloning typically makes a one-to-one copy of the hard drive, whereas the disk image creates an archive that helps make a one-to-one copy.