I apologize, I'm certain these questions are addressed in the docs, but I'm drowning in details of more complex scenarios and can't work out where to start finding this, probably stupidly simple, answer. I'll need to perform this operation right first time, since it's not my own system that's to be worked on, but my father-in-law's and I'll only be visiting for a fairly short time so I can't afford to do my usual "try it fifteen times over a week or so and eventually figure it out" approach :)
I want to make a replacement boot drive for an ageing windows system. There are no reported bad sectors at this point, but it's old enough that the hardware shouldn't be trusted much longer. Further, it's an HDD and I want to replace it with an SDD. The SDD will, inevitably, be larger, but I'm not particularly concerned if that excess space is simply invisible.
In light of that, my questions are:
1) Is this in fact the right/best tool for the job? I considered simply using dd, but I suspect that the partition table would not come over correctly.
2) All the docs I've found seem to imply that I must run clonezilla from a bootable disk, however, my Ubuntu 22.04 seems to have a command line version (run as root). Is there anything dubious about that, or can I just run that and get what I need? I'm not trying to manipulate any of the host system's drives in any way, simply clone from the (externaly connected) windows drive to the (also externally connected) replacement. Both drives will be on USB adapters for the clone process.
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About your questions,
1. It might work to use dd. Clonezilla is more efficient. However, basically it's quite similar for these two.
2. Your Ubuntu 22.04? Is it in the same machine with MS Windows? i.e., a dual boot system in the same hard drive? If so, since Clonezilla can only clone unmounted partition. Your running Ubuntu 22.04 won't be cloned because the file system is busy (mounted).
I suggest you backup important data if you want to use Clonezilla to clone that.
One more thing, if your Windows does not have the driver to support your SSD, you will have to prepare that and use Windows installation CD/USB key to install the.
Clonezilla just clone the system for you, and it won't add any driver for you.
Steven
👍
1
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Thank you for this @steven_shiau - efficiency will be helpful for sure, I suspect that this disk is not very full.
It's a completely different machine, hence the desire to have a decent chance of success first time--I'm 1000 miles from home and if it doesn't work pretty much first time, I'll run out of time and have to fly home, so the original disk will be removed from the windows box and hanging off the side of my Linux box on a USB/SATA adapter. The target drive will be hanging off another such adapter.
The driver question is interesting and I had not thought of that. I thought SSDs simply appeared as yet another SATA device. I guess I'll try to install SSD support prior to taking the drive out for copying.
Cheers!
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I apologize, I'm certain these questions are addressed in the docs, but I'm drowning in details of more complex scenarios and can't work out where to start finding this, probably stupidly simple, answer. I'll need to perform this operation right first time, since it's not my own system that's to be worked on, but my father-in-law's and I'll only be visiting for a fairly short time so I can't afford to do my usual "try it fifteen times over a week or so and eventually figure it out" approach :)
I want to make a replacement boot drive for an ageing windows system. There are no reported bad sectors at this point, but it's old enough that the hardware shouldn't be trusted much longer. Further, it's an HDD and I want to replace it with an SDD. The SDD will, inevitably, be larger, but I'm not particularly concerned if that excess space is simply invisible.
In light of that, my questions are:
1) Is this in fact the right/best tool for the job? I considered simply using dd, but I suspect that the partition table would not come over correctly.
2) All the docs I've found seem to imply that I must run clonezilla from a bootable disk, however, my Ubuntu 22.04 seems to have a command line version (run as root). Is there anything dubious about that, or can I just run that and get what I need? I'm not trying to manipulate any of the host system's drives in any way, simply clone from the (externaly connected) windows drive to the (also externally connected) replacement. Both drives will be on USB adapters for the clone process.
About your questions,
1. It might work to use dd. Clonezilla is more efficient. However, basically it's quite similar for these two.
2. Your Ubuntu 22.04? Is it in the same machine with MS Windows? i.e., a dual boot system in the same hard drive? If so, since Clonezilla can only clone unmounted partition. Your running Ubuntu 22.04 won't be cloned because the file system is busy (mounted).
I suggest you backup important data if you want to use Clonezilla to clone that.
One more thing, if your Windows does not have the driver to support your SSD, you will have to prepare that and use Windows installation CD/USB key to install the.
Clonezilla just clone the system for you, and it won't add any driver for you.
Steven
Thank you for this @steven_shiau - efficiency will be helpful for sure, I suspect that this disk is not very full.
It's a completely different machine, hence the desire to have a decent chance of success first time--I'm 1000 miles from home and if it doesn't work pretty much first time, I'll run out of time and have to fly home, so the original disk will be removed from the windows box and hanging off the side of my Linux box on a USB/SATA adapter. The target drive will be hanging off another such adapter.
The driver question is interesting and I had not thought of that. I thought SSDs simply appeared as yet another SATA device. I guess I'll try to install SSD support prior to taking the drive out for copying.
Cheers!