The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    complete clone for new HDD?

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by de.1337, Aug 31, 2009.

  1. de.1337

    de.1337 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    373
    Messages:
    491
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    What would you recommend for completely cloning my current 60 GB HDD onto a new 160 GB one? I have an ext3 partition and an NTFS partition (yep, a dual-booter; using GRUB), so I'm not quite sure about a filesystem based clone.

    And I probably am going to want a bigger NTFS partition, but I think I could leave the ext3 partition at its current 10 GB.

    Any suggestions?
     
    de.1337, Aug 31, 2009
    #1
  2. Saisei

    Saisei Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    108
    Messages:
    869
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    31
    cant you backup your important files onto a usb then just do a clean install?
     
    Saisei, Aug 31, 2009
    #2
  3. User Retired 2

    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    4,127
    Messages:
    7,860
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Boot into Linux recovery console and just do a block by block copy, ensuring you have <src> and <dest> correct:

    # hdparm -i /dev/sda
    # hdparm -i /dev/sdb
    # dd if=<src> of=<dest> bs=64k

    Then just use 'EASEUS Partition Manager' to expand the copied NTFS partition. Easy.
     
    User Retired 2, Aug 31, 2009
    #3
  4. de.1337

    de.1337 Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    373
    Messages:
    491
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Well, I could, but it would be a pain because of the low low speed of my internet connection. And it's not what I'm asking about. ;)

    Sounds like a sound plan. May do this. Why do you suggest using a Linux recovery console and not a LiveCD?

    And... any other suggestions? I'm open to your wisdom. :D
     
    de.1337, Sep 1, 2009
    #4
  5. ViciousXUSMC

    ViciousXUSMC Master Viking NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    11,461
    Messages:
    16,824
    Likes Received:
    76
    Trophy Points:
    466
    I know Acronis is the best way for Windows, but I am not sure if it handles the ext3 partition

    It can do a img backup that is compressed and can be stored away or it does a drive to drive clone for upgrading.

    edit: yes it supports all the linux partition types - http://www.acronis.com/company/inpress/2002/08-pc911-ti.html

    This was way back in v6 too its up to V11 now and you can just d/l the free trial to do what you need to do.
     
    ViciousXUSMC, Sep 1, 2009
    #5
  6. User Retired 2

    User Retired 2 Notebook Nobel Laureate NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    4,127
    Messages:
    7,860
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Yeah - Live CD or recovery console. Either is OK. Main point is to not have a filesystem that you are copying that is being written to. I've done the above and it's the fastest clone of my HDDs. Even if the HDDs are not the same size. If keep the original partitions, then can copy back to the smaller HDD too. Though any partitions that extend outside of it's size bounds needs to be deleted in the partition table.
     
    User Retired 2, Sep 1, 2009
    #6