Save image of a larger partition to smaller partition

[Darren Williamson]

Hello, I am new to clonezilla live, I've used it successfully in the past to clone smaller drives to newer larger ones, but I am tired of having to reinstall windows to my sons computer (for the umpteenth time) so I am trying to image a new windows 7 install (on a 300gb partition) to a seperate 150gb partition on the same hard drive so that when I need to reinstall I can just boot to clonezilla live and restore that image to the 300gb partition.
Basically I want an image of the windows install, (of a fresh/clean updated windows) on the end partition of his drive so I can just restore it every time he kills windows LOL
Is this an option?
I've been reading the Live doc, and cannot seem to find any info that says this isn't possible or and option to select to do it.
I get file doesn't exist errors when it trys to write to the /home/partimag/ directory
when creating an image does it matter the partition the image is being written to is smaller (as I'm not copying the partition to a partition?
I got the impression it should only saves the used "part" of the partition and ignores the free space when creating the image?
I'm using I'm using the "stable - 2.5.0-25" version
I've tried with the 150gb partition being formated as ext2 and ntfs ..
any help would be great
Thanks
Daz

[Darren Williamson]

I have tried shrinking the partition to be imaged to 130gb so it is smaller than the 150gb destination
but still getting file doesnt exist errors..
is clonezilla the best option .. or should I be looking at another program?
Thanks
Daz

[Bert]

Hello,

SORRY FOR MY ENGLISH...

assuming the partition you want to save is 100 Gb and the destination disk is 60, unless your data are larger than 60 (e.g. 40), you can shrink your partition using gparted from 100 to 41, 42... Then you can clone it to the destination drive.

If you shrink from 100 to 40 you will have 60 gb of unallocated space: when the clone has finished, gparted will allow to enlarge the source "covering" the unallocated space.

I alreday did like this and it works very well!

I usually have a partition and/or external usb drive for may data and keep the OS clean. So, even if the OS partition in very large, e.g. 500 Gb, the OS will not be larger than 20-30 Gb and you'll be able to save it on a 120 (or less) Gb HD.

The best way is to clone the OS and save your data in a different place.