System image restore failed

That leaves two options:

1. Use OCZ's recommendation and stay with a fresh install of Windows (I can show you how to at least recover your data files, but the applications will need to be reinstalled).
2. Go ahead with the recovery process and restore the Image Backup to the new SSD drive. I have this techique documented (using traditional hard drives) documented.

Its your choice.

J W Stuart: http://www.pagestart.com

I know how to recover the data files - in fact that's the first thing I did when I got the replacement SSD drive.  Then I realised that that was not the same thing as a full restore.  It's the applications which are the problem - especially my email program (Mozilla Thunderbird) which, when I first bought this machine was an absolute nightmare to reinstall and reconfigure - mainly because all of the thousands of emails in its "Mailbase" are compressed.  When you reinstall it new folders are created and copying old folders across just messes it up.  It's that sort of thing - and smtp and pop3 and FTP settings which took me days to sort out last time, and what I'm hoping to try to avoid.  (Though had I have known how long the alternative was going to take I'd obviously have done it that way).  As we've come this far, let's go ahead and try the recovery process.  You'll probably have to lead me through it step by step.  Where do we start?

Windows 7 - SDD Recovery Procedure

Baseline:

1. Your existing install of Windows 7 on the SSD, I will reference this as your “SSD drive”
2. Your external USB drive and the Windows 7 Backup and Restore Image backup, I will refer to this as the “Master Image”.
3. Your internal (E:) hard drive, I will refer to this as the  “Internal Drive”

Software:

MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition:

http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

Acronis True Image 2011 Home (Free Trial): http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/index.html

My Defrag: http://www.mydefrag.com/

Brief Overview:

Use Acronis to covert the “Master Image” to Acronis format. Shrink the front of your “Internal” drive. Disconnect the data cable from the “SDD drive”. Restore the converted “Master Image” to the unallocated space on the “Internal drive”, Boot to the restored image no located on the “Internal Drive”. Shrink the Windows 7 partition on the “Internal Drive”. Create a new Acronis Image Backup to the USB drive. Disconnect the data cable from the “Internal Drive”. Connect the data cable to the “SSD drive”. Restore the newly created Acronis Image to the “SSD drive”. Boot from the SSD drive and verify your apps and data are intact and function properly.

Here are the steps on what you actually will need to do:

1. Install Acronis True Image on the “SSD drive” if you haven’t already done so.
2. Install Partition Wizard on the “SDD drive”.
3. Create a folder on the USB drive and make a copy the “Master Image” folders and file in the folder you created. (WindowsImageBackup, folder that has the same name as your ‘Computer Name’ and a file named MediaId.bin). This is for added protection of the “Master Image”.
4. Use Acronis to convert the “Master Image” located in the root of the USB drive (do not use the extra copy in the folder you created) for use by the Acronis True Image recovery media. The conversion will create a file with a .tib extension.
5. Shrink the front of the (E:) “Internal Drive” drive partition to create 150GB of “Unallocated” space. This is more than large enough to restore the image to.
6. Use the Acronis 'Recovery Disk' to restore the converted “Master Image” to the "Unallocated" (150GB) space on the “Internal Drive”.
7. See if you can boot to what was once your E: drive, which will now have 3 partitions (System,Reserved, Windows and your original data partition). Note: The small 100MB System,Reserved partition must be marked as the 'Active' partition during the image restore. If it is not use Partition Wizard (Bootable CD) to mark it as the active partition.
8. Run ‘Disk Cleanup’. Install My Defrag and defragment the drive using the option to consolidate everything up at the front of the drive. This will not only make step 9 easier to perform but also minimize the footprint of the image backup you are going to create in step 10. Should also have less impact for TRIM on the SSD drive.
9. Shrink the Windows partition on the “Internal Drive” drive (Using ‘Disk Management’) to a size that is slightly less than the 80GB. This assumes that your previous installation which you used for the creation of the “Master Image” did not consume more than 80GB. In any case try to get it (Shrink it) down to less 100GB.
10. Install Acronis and create a new Image Backup using Acronis to the USB drive.

Note: Only include the System,Reserved and Windows (C:) partition in the backup. Do not include the data partition of what was once your E: drive.

11. Disconnect the data cable from the “Internal Drive” and connect the data cable to the “SSD Drive”.
12. Boot from the Acronis 'Recovery/Rescue' CD and restore the newly created “Acronis” image from the USB drive to the “SSD Drive”. This is where the leap of faith kicks in. With Windows already on the “SSD Drive” you need to (Using Acronis) first delete the existing “System,Reserved” and the “Windows” partitions from the “SDD” drive so the entire 120GB is listed as “Unallocated”. Then you start the image recovery process and let Acronis resize the image to fully utilize all 120GigaBytes on the “SSD drive”.
13. Remove the Acronis CD and reboot to Windows.
14. Next you should use Windows 7’s  'Disk Management' to verify that there is no unallocated space. If there is, then 'Extend' the SSD drive C: partition to include any unallocated space that may be remaining at the end of the SSD drive.
15. Your done.

Please note that I will not be available after about 10AM US Eastern Time.

J W Stuart http://www.pagestart.com

OK, I get as far as step 3.  Best I think to stop here and ask you rather than start deleting data.  Numbers match your steps above:

0. As a result of our earlier attempts when I boot up I get Windows Boot manager asking me which version of Windows I want to run Windows 7... or Windows 7.  I choose the first one.

1 and 2) I install both to the SSD but wonder if you have remembered that you asked me to install both before, to make bootable CDs from them.  Both were erased I think when I had to reinstall windows twice, but I still have the bootable CDs.

3. I attempt to make the copy but find I need 141Gb of space, but there's only 80Gb remaining on my 465Gb(500Gb) external drive.  What's on there is mostly old backups from old backup software, and manual backups of things like photos.  I delete some stuff that's safe to delete, like an audio book recording, but don't manage to free up much.  Note that when I previously ran the Windows recovery, it could see three backups in the folder which has my computer name.  I also now notice that there's an "empty folder" which has my computer name capitalised and an icon of a harddisk+floppydisk+greenarrow.  When I click it I get "Windows Backup, Do you want to restore files from this backup?"  This is separate and outside of the Windows Image Backup folder.  This has got three folders in it called backup sets.  The Windows Image Backup folder has a folder inside with my computer name.  Inside that there is a folder called backup with lots of data files with very long names headed by three .vhd files.  I'm surprised to see that those three have very different lengths 53,000Kb 91648,000Kb and 57018,000Kb respectively.  Finally I note that alongside this folder I have a file called MediaId which seems to have no file extension (I have "hide extensions for known file types" switched off".  Its date modified is Aug 2010.  A file called MediaId.bin sits in the top level om my external drive also with a date modified of Aug 2010. Confused.

0. The list of two choices of Windows to boot from is stored in that small 100MB System,Reserved partition. Step #12 is were you will delete this partition along with the Windows 7 partition on the SSD drive, so as long as you can boot to Windows don't worry about it. Also I would take a look at that OCZ "Erase" utility. It might be a good idea to after step #11 and before starting step #12 (this assumes that this utility is on a bootable CD).
1. and 2) ... Sorry but both need to be reinstalled.
2. "could see three backups in the folder which has my computer name". Windows Backup and Restore creates two types of backups for data the is located in your 'Documents' folder and libraries. This first backup of your 'Documents' folder is part of the "Image" file and the second is that folder that is named "YourComputerName" which contains a series of compressed .zip files. We are only interested in the Image Backup folder (WindowsImageBackup).

3a) "53,000Kb 91648,000Kb and 57018,000Kb respectively".

The 53,000KB .vhd file is the backup of the "System,Reserved" partition.

The 91648,000KB .vhd file more than likely is your Windows 7 partition as its 91.6GB in size. Finally the 57018,000KB file may be the result of an incremental or scheduled backup a contains any changes made. If you right click to the right of the 'Size' column in Windows Explorer and select 'Date Created' you should now see when this .vhd file was created and more than likely after (by hours or days after) the 91.6GB file was created.

3b) "MediaId" - there are normally two so everything is OK.

The space issue on the USB drive. I don't knowwhat that old backup software was but if these are large file I would delete (starting from the oldest creation date) at least some of these old backup to make room for the Acronis Image Backups.

If the E: drive is not too full you could also move some of the old files over from the USB drive to the E: drive, but not untill after you shrink the front of the drive (step 5).