W7 backup - restore to a smaller partition?

[InQ]

I plan on changing my current OS HDD for a SSD.

I currently have W7 installed to a 120Gb partition on my 1st HDD, if i use the W7 backup utility to make an image of the installation can i recover this image to a smaller partition (eg 40Gb) when booting via the W7 DVD?
Or will i need to use a 3rd party program, if so would a free trial copy of Acronis suffice or is there better/simpler programs out there?

I just want to simply create an image of the current W7 partition, store it on my 2nd HDD, swap the 1st HDD for the new SSD, boot from the W7, Acronis etc DVD and then recover the image to the new SSD from the 2nd HDD.

 

[theheyes]

I don't know for sure but I doubt it. You could reduce the size of the OS partition and then clone it I suppose.

How heavily customized is the install? Don't forget an SSD will fly and if you make yourself a USB boot stick then the installation will be pretty rapid.

 

[InQ]

Its not massively customised but if the option to image it is there then thats going to save me a few hours.
Done a bit of digging on Acronis and it seems you can do it with that.

http://kb.acronis.com/content/2770

I also forgot to mention i have a Vista recovery partition on the same HDD as the OS (its a HP laptop) so would want to just pick the OS partition and not the whole HDD...i dont want the recovery partition on the SSD.