General :: Cloning Dual Boot Drive Onto Smaller One
May 28, 2010
I've decided that I want to use another, smaller, hard drive for my OS and I'd like to clone /dev/sda onto /dev/sdc. I want it to be an exact clone except my partition for my "/home" will be smaller (since there's not room for it). I was gonna try with dd but I'm not sure if I should build the partition table and use dd-command on one partition at the time? Will this then include GRUB boot loader and will it be working properly?
Do I have to clone the disk completely for it to boot properly? I'm not sure how or where GRUB places itself on disks as you install it. Can I perhaps copy the partitions one by one and then install GRUB from CD afterwards? Should I leave some unallocated space somewhere in between the partitions as I build and clone them?
I have my Mythbuntu 9.10 environment installed on an old 160GB PATA disk and have just purchased a new 64GB SSD that I want to transfer my installation to.In the past I've just used ddrescue to clone disks, however in this case the source disk is larger than the destination disk so it won't work. I only have a few GB of actual data on the 160GB disk, so the 64GB SSD is definitely going to be enough for me.
I guess I need someway of either cloning so that only the actual data and not the partition is brought across, or possible shrinking the partition(s) first on the source drive and then using the same ddrescue method I've used in the past.Just looking for some assistance on what method is the best/most reliable?
I have a dual boot and every program I try to clone the ubuntu partition seems to want to have the entire hard drive to clone to.In other words, if I attach an external hard drive and select the ext4 Ubuntu Linux to clone to a purposefully made ext4 partition in an external drive - every program wants to copy to the entire external hard drive.Any suggestions?I think that clonezilla allows more freedom but I just dont quite get it - the options seem a little confusing in that I am worried that I will copy the partition back to my actual machine.
I am probably being a bit paranoid, but if anyone can think of a simple program that allows me to simply copy one partition to another purpose made (external) partition then please let me know!!
I would like to replace my old 100gb boot drive in my server with a new SSD...for obvious reasons. So what is the best way to clone the existing installation (10.04 desktop) from the old boot drive onto the new SSD? I have read some guides online that suggest using the live CD and various software packages but most of them say it will only work if you are cloning to a disk of the same size or larger, nobody seems to address taking an installation from a larger volume down to a smaller one - in my case a 100gb IDE onto a 30gb SATA SSD.
As this is a datadump, the only drives I really care about are the various 1.0/1.5tb drives that actually store the data, the OS drive contains nothing more than the standard OS, samba/webmin and a few monitoring tools. So I guess it's not the end of the world for me to start fresh and install 10.10 next week, but I would like to know for the sake of this upgrade and future ones if anyone can be of assistance. basic specs if needed: Athlon64 X2 3800, 2gb DDR500, Asus A8N SLI Premium (Nforce 4/Silicon Image 3114R RAID controller). OS is on a 100gb IDE (WD1000BB-00C) and I would like to toss it on a Kingston 30gb SSD (SNV125-S2/30).
In a few hours I'll have a new 500GB Sony laptop, filled with the usual Sony rubbish which I'll promptly be replacing with Ubuntu or Crunchbang or something. However, first I want to make a full clone of the drive (including recovery partitions), should I wish to return it to Sony or sell it on in its factory state.
The problem is that the only backup drives I have are less than 500GB - the biggest I have is 250GB or so! So I need to backup and compress on-the-fly.
What's the best way to do this? Presumably dd piped into gzip would do the trick, or does anyone have any other suggestions to accomplish this?
I have a Shuttle XPC with 3 drives. /dev/sda is a 320GB SATA drive with a basic installation. Two partitions, a swap and the rest is on /. The other two drives are 1.5TB SATA configured as a software mirror as /dev/md0.
I want to use dd to clone the 320GB boot/OS drive to a 750GB SATA I have at home. Last night I put the 750 in a USB enclosure and at about 6:00 PM fired off: dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdd
It's now 7:16 AM and the dd is *STILL* going. Is this unusually long to clone the drive? Is there any way to check the progress or a way to launch dd with a progress indicator?
I want to move the entire contents of my backup HD to another HD. I could manually copy everything, but I was hoping to clone the entire backup hard drive. I tried to do it with Gparted, but as far as I can tell, I can't clone between drives, only between partitions on the same drive (I've done that before). So how can I do this in Linux? I think one of my drives came with a cloning utility on a CD, but I'm not sure I still have the CD.
My parents bought a new hard drive for a laptop that I've owned for several years. It's much larger than the current one, so I plan on splitting it up to dual boot it with Ubuntu.I have no problem with partitioning a drive (I always keep a LiveCD handy), but my question is this: how can I go about moving the existing partition to the new drive? This is a laptop, so I can't simply plug the new drive into another slot.
Also, even if I manage to move it, will Windows still work on the new drive in a larger partition? I've had this laptop for quite a while, and I've lost the recovery discs that came with it a long time ago. I also have a lot of software without CDs to reinstall them with. This makes not reinstalling Windows a high priority.
I have my old laptop TravelMate 2413NLMi 1GB RAM. My Cd drive works not well on most of the CDs. I don't know how it picks Win2K3 cd but in that also it gives problem. After some break it picks it up. Installed win 2K3 server successfully from CD Drive. That Cd is old and very good quality. Later I downloaded ubuntu iso 32 /64 both when I heard about dual boot via wubi. I wrote the ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386 iso on 2 CDs with fastest and slowest speed both on my new laptop but that Cds not worked in the old laptop cd drive. Also my laptop not support USB as boot device in boot sequence. So USB install via usb creator cannot work. I also verified that Iso are fine by installing on someone else's desktop PC. Those cds work well there.
Back to my laptop: Then I copied all Cd content in a folder on desktop of Win2K3 with the help of my new laptop CD drive and usb drive I have. I run the Wubi on the desktop of Win2k3. It run successfully and in the end asked me to reboot. I rebooted. I got the 'Ubuntu' option on booting. I selected and came into it. After that ubuntu splash screen came and then following message displayed on screen
The Error: mount: mounting /dev/loop1 on //filesystem.squashfs failed: Input/Output error
I got it this is due to the dead/faulty cd drive which ubuntu not able to mount. Now tell me how to install ubuntu further with the UI. Is there some special command to do this going in Grub pressing 'ESC' because the already specified modes have some commands on pressing 'e' there. Some way if I can use iso in that environment copying from USB. I need commands for that. I want to see ubuntu in action. I used lot of my bandwidth to download this iso files but still not able to see it in action.
Have older system, self-built around 2000 or so. My plan is to optimize the system for speed and utility, upgrade the OS from W2000 Pro to XP Pro, and include dual boot so as to install some version/distro (?) of Linux to learn on. Present system: X86 based (32 bit), using a P4, 1.8 GHz/400 MHz fsb, with 512mb of DDR RAM installed, can upgrade to 2 gigs total.Shuttle MV42 motherboard, including onboard video and sound (S3 Graphics ProSavage DDR P4M266/VIA 8751/8233 chipset, VIA AC'97 Audio Controller, 2.2 compliant)
If I should decide to use the available 160 gig drive as a dual boot system, in order to install both XP and some version of Linux, how should I set it up? How many partitions will XP and Linux need or work with best? How much space for each OS? What file systems? Should I format/partition it with the existing W2000 OS? What comes first, the chicken or the egg? (XP or Linux?) I have read somewhere that it matters which OS is installed first, due to boot records being overwritten by successive OS installs. I plan to keep W2000 on the first HDD at least until I move my files over to XP. Will I need to switch the master/slave designations after installing XP and Linux on the new drive, since I will want to boot from that drive?
My Toshiba Satellite 5205-S705 laptop with Win XP Home sp3 has a non-working cd drive, is riddled with viruses, and isn't capable of booting to a USB drive. (please no comments about paperweights etc., it's all I have!) I want to install a Linux dual-boot version that is heavy on antivirus scanning support. Since I can't boot to an .iso disk, is there any other way to do this? I can transfer files to it via USB thumbdrive or download via Internet.
I am getting a new 4kb sector HDD for my laptop, WD scorpio black 750gb, I would like to image existing partitions on 512bytes sector HDD and move them to the new 4kb sector HDD, what's the best way to do this.
present config is as follows:
Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders, total 156301488 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
[Code].....
I am planning to keep the same three partitions as the primary partitions on the new drive and add few more logical partitions. I would have liked to move to GPT but since I need Win 7, I am stuck with MBR partiotion table.
Now, I understand how to partition an Advanced format disk, what I want to know is how to move the existing partitions on the 80 Gb disk to the new disk?
I use Clonezilla to copy partitions but it is not compatible unless both the target and the source disks are already using 4096 sector size.
I can use Acronis True Image WD Edition to clone Win 7 but how do I clone Ubuntu?
Also my Laptop's chipset is limited to SATA 1.5, will it cause any issues, I know the bandwidth is not an issue.
I have ubuntu server acting as a router installed on a 60 gig drive, i'd like to use that drive in another machine and replace it with a 5 gig drive. how can i transfer from the 60 gig drive to the 5 gig drive?
I have a RHEL4 system with 2 250GB physical volumes. There is a boot partition that is outside LVM and 2 logical volumes (swap and root) within a single volume group. This volume group bridges the 2 physical volumes.
I would like to clone this system onto a single 1 TB physical volume that will replace the 2x250GB currently in use.
I am trying to clone my internal drive on my laptop using the dd command after starting up my computer using the 10.10 installer CD. Nothing happens when I follow the instructions from this site: [URL] When I follow these instructions, it doesn't work. I know that I am not being specific here but all I can say is that nothing happens. What am I doing wrong. My internal drive is 250GB and the partition I created on my DOS formatted external drive is 250GB as well.
I have a rock solid server running CentOS 5.3 (probably 5.4 soon enough). Basic LAMP box with a few tweaks thrown in. Everything is running perfectly, with one problem - the drive is too small (I project it filling up to dangerous levels in 6-8 months). So, what I'm looking to do is basically clone the drive, store the image, pull the current drive and replace with a bigger drive (same number of heads and cylinders though), and install the image.
What I did do once, a million years ago, is put the new drive as a slave on the same IDE cable, and use dd (working from a live CD of the distro) to copy from the master (smaller) to slave (larger). Then, yank the smaller, change jumper on bigger drive from slave to master, and away I go. Next step as I recall was using gparted to get access to all the space on the new, bigger drive.
Is this more less still a reasonable way to go? I recall the issue was making sure the old smaller and new larger drive had the same number of heads/cylinders (although I don't remember exactly why).
When I first switched from windoze to Fedora I trimed a bit of space off the end of the HDD, formatted it to ext3 and installed Fedora 14 there. I have now completely rebuilt the machine and put a 2TB drive in. My intention was to upgrade to Fedora 15, but after a few weeks trying to get the new gnome to anything resembling useful, I gave up and decided to go back to the reliable 14.
I tried the old drive, and everything worked great, so I though no problem, clone that over to the new drive, and job done, no need to mess about for weeks getting all my settings back. I booted from the old drive with both connected and ran gparted, It sees both drives but won't let me copy the old partition. It complains about 'LMV is not yet supported' I tried booting from a gparted ISO with the same result.
How can I get this sorted? I've got work needing done, I don't have time to start from scratch (*AGAIN*),
Is there a utility app that will allow 'ghosting' your current Linux harddrive to another. For example, my current drive is 40Gb, I'd like to ghost/clone it to a 320Gb harddrive. Using an app like this saves re-installing the O/S, software, configuration and allows making a disaster-recovery drive.
I'm trying to make an image of my whole hard drive (320 GB) to save on an external hard drive. I'm using Ubuntu Jaunty Live CD to do it, with this command
Code: sudo dd if=/dev/sda | gzip -c > /media/ExpansionDrive/imagedd.img At the beginning everything is going fine, but after few hours the transfer rate is incredibly low. After 1/2 hour, 20 Gb have been copied. After 1 hour, 27 GB After 2 hours, 40 GB After 4 hours, 54 GB After 8 hours, 71 GB
Is it normal? I've also tried to use ddrescue, but I have the same problem. Is there any other tool to clone hard drive with a constant transfer rate?
My dad passed away 2 years ago and he had a toshibia laptop, and today I've decided to start using it. I would like to reformat it to Arch Linux from Windows XP.
He has a 80gb hdd with everything on one partition (thats how windows does it). I would like to create another partition (~20gb, and I know how to do this) and have clonezilla clone the main partition and save it to the 20gb partition. This is because you can't clone and save to the same drive unless its partitioned. (I'm saying partition lot).
Anyway my fathers computer is very important to me, and having it remain intact as he left it is very very important to me. I know the easiest and most sarcastic response is to tell me not to use it, but I want to use this computer.
Does anyone have experience with clonezilla? Will it back up the ENTIRE HDD like it says it will, without missing any important documents and files scattered throughout the disc? And when I do finish the cloning, format, and at a later date restore using the image I copied, will it be like I never touched it?
I have a volume group that is made up of a number of physical volumes. I am thinking of consolidating all the small physical volumes onto one big drive. Is there any benefit in this, besides making administration easier? How do I go about doing this? From what I have read, it looks like I should have to do the following
1. add the new big drive to the VG 2. use pvmove to move the smaller PV onto the new PV 3. use pvchange -xn to make sure the old PV can no longer be allocated 4. repeat for all the small PVs. 5. use pvremove to remove all the small PVs
I'm getting Permission denied even though I'm putting sudo in front of the command but, instead of asking me for a pass word it just says Permission denied "then" it askes for a pass. I enter the pass and it just takes me to the
user01@ubuntu:~$
prompt. I enter the command a second time and it says Permission denied again.
I recently installed another Linux on my USB drive. All works well and can boot into Ubuntu or PeppermeinOS. However, the system will not boot at all unless the USB is plugged in.
I have recently ghosted, using g4u, an 80 gig drive to a 30 gig drive. The data size is about 15 gig so no problem there.The system does work and it doing everything it should, except for some errors in dmsg log.The thing is though, that the system works! all the services are running and live.And i have years worth of customizations in this machine. Has been running for several years, so i dont just want to reformat and reinstall. Its hard to get linux the way you want it sometimes!So my question is this, is there a way to fix my partition or somehow tell the machine what the current boundries <i>should</i> be?
I wanted to back up my 4Gb boot drive and the new drive I had was slightly smaller. Couldn't find any info on here and precious little on the internet but I have previously used this technique to clone an 8Gb disk onto a 4Gb one. Since I have gained a lot of useful info from this forum over the years its probably time I contributed something. I used my netbook but this would work equally well from a live CD. Note the disk has to be unmounted so you can't use the live system. Firstly your USB stick probably has 2 partitions one for "/" and one for swap.
The first step is to reduce the "/" partition on the source drive to a size smaller than your target drive. I used gparted for this. Next create a partition on your target drive that is the same size or bigger than your newly shrunken partition. I formatted this although I'm not sure this is necessary. Personally I just used the whole drive and used a file on a hard disk as swap. Next you have to use dd to copy the partition.What is important is that you are copying the partition not the drive. So your source would be /dev/sdx1 and target /dev/sdy1 (you will need to find your own values for x&y).
Once again be very careful that you get these the right way around or you will destroy your souce disk. Even better do it in two stages - copy your source to a file and then the file to the target. Now you have a replica of your original disk but it is not bootable. If you are planning to use a swap partition you may as well create it now. Remember you will probably have to change /etc/fstab to read the new swap - at least on my system this was referenced by UUID. No need to change anything for the replicated partition as the UUID came over with everything else.
I'm a bit new to LVM administration, and I have a question that the Clonezilla Live forum referred here. Below is the question.
2010-06-24 07:10:00 UTC So, I was moving from a 250G disk to a 320G disk because I was running out of space on my laptop. My problem is that my new drive seems convinced that it is only 250G in size, and I'm wondering how to persuade it otherwise. I'm not sure if it matters, but I did use the -k1 option when Clonezilla was restoring in order to resize the partitions proportionally. Here is the output of fdisk -l and pvdisplay:
root@nansen: [/]$ fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 17 133610 83 Linux Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/sda2 17 38911 312412851+ 8e Linux LVM
So fdisk knows that the drive is 320Gb, and the sda2 partition is about 319Gb in size. But LVM isn't buying it:
root@nansen: [/]$ pvdisplay --- Physical volume --- PV Name /dev/sda2 VG Name VolGroup00 PV Size 232.78 GB / not usable 2.71 MB Allocatable yes PE Size (KByte) 32768 Total PE 7449 Free PE 1 Allocated PE 7448 PV UUID RKhtpa-J34H-GnvD-26v3-bAEI-wccm-f55hwS
Is there some sort of pvchange command that I need to run? Here is some more info in case you need it.
steven_shiau (Clonezilla Live moderator) 2010-06-24 14:03:48 UTC Option "-k1" is only for partition size, it won't deal with LVM yet. I think you need other tool to resize the LVM.
i am running ubuntu 10.10 and windows7 on a asus eee 1015. currently i have two partitions: 80GB for windows (NTFS) and 160Gb for Ubuntu (ext4).
I want to:
- shrink the windows partition (easy, no worries);
- Shrink the ubuntu partition
- join the space thus created in a third partition that i can use for storage, media etc accessible by both windows and ubuntu
The problem:
- i could not manage to get gparted live to run off USB stick (i get the unable to find medium.... error)
- even if i would get gparted to work and i succeed in shrinking the ubuntu partition as well, the two spaces reclaimed will be divided by the ubuntu partition, which means they cannot be joined in a third partition.
so here is what i want to do:
- shrink windows and create a new partition;
- format this new partition as ext4;
- somehow "clone" the data on my current ubuntu root into the new partition;
- format the current root as NTFS and use it as the storage partition
i am aware this may mean i would have to re-set grub etc but would the cloning of the partition be possible? that i would need to clone data from a 160G partition into a 40G partition.
BY THE WAY - forgot to mention that i have tried to load clonezilla off an USB drive and i get the same error: "unable to find medium..."
I am not smart enough to figure out how to install Fedora 14 correctly. I have an older computer with 2 20gb drives. On the first drive (sda) I have Windows XP, and on the 2nd drive (sdb) I am trying to install Fedora 14. The catch is that I would like to put Grub and the MBR on the first drive so that when the computer boots, it asks whether to load Windows XP or Fedora. I know I have done it with Fedora 13 in the past, but have forgotten how to do it. How to accomplish this in Anaconda for Fedora 14?
I am currently using an Eee PC 1005HA with Ubuntu installed. I'd like to dual boot with Windows XP. How can I do this without a CD drive? I have an external hard drive that I used to install Ubuntu in the first place and a Windows XP install CD with key.
