We want to replace some old harddrives (500GB) since some died and bought new harddrives as cheap as possible (320GB). Please don't tell me if we pay peanuts, we get monkeys. It was my bad idea and I would like to come out of it without harm.
The PC run on win xp without internet-connection. Not perfect, but reasonable, because the old erp does not support win xp anymore. It works perfectly. Everyone knows what to do. Backup is working perfectly as well and so on. Migration would cost time, education of staff, and so on...
To install freshly with a "new" win xp from CD is hazardous, and needs to be done by several consultants, which is a risk in itself and of course time-consuming.
Therefore we would like to copy a booting 40 GB-system-partition of windows xp from the old hdd(500GB) onto a new harddrive of 320 GB. Space enough left, for a DATA-Partition we don't really need, because DATA other then programs and system is saved on the server, which is backuped daily.
What I have right now is:
a full clonezilla-backup device-image, standard-configuration of the 500GB-hdd.
I also have a gparted-copy of the system-partition of 40GB.
What I've tried so far: Copy with gparted 40 GB systempartition to new 320 GB hdd(doesn't work), Boot Original-XP-CD go into "R"epairconsole,
fixmbr c:\
fixboot c:\
bootcfg /rebuild
That didn't work
OK...
Next try:
Boot clonezilla, just for the heck of it, knowing from experience that could be a problem:
device-image, beginner, not enough space
Next try:
Boot clonezilla, expert, no warning-icds-option and then k1.
That didn't work either.
next idea
My next move will be to restore a windows-backup from years ago, which was just 250GB. Then I want to replace the folders e.g. Windows inside the new 250 GB-partition on the new 320GB-hdd with knoppix from the gparted-partition-copy of the 40GB-systempartition of the old 500GB-hdd. What do you think, would that work?
Thank you for your input!
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restore the clonezilla images to a VM ( 500GB or larger ), boot gpared live, shrink all partition(s) so all combined sizes will not exceed 280GB ( or 250GB ) ( make sure that there is no empty space between the partitions ). Create a clonezilla backup of the VM drive, manually edit the size of the disk (in sectors) listed in sda-pt.parted so it does exceed slightly the total size of combined partitions (eg: +1 Gig ), save ( keep the original as a backup ), boot clonezilla, and restore to the 320gig disk...
copy all files from 500 to 320GB disk, copy MBR without partition table ( first 446 bytes ) from the original drive, copy the "hidden data" starting after first 512bytes and 1 MiB, and boot the system. ( basically create partitions on 320GB, format, copy the data, and re-create the MBR )
none of these two processes is "easy" and requires some knowledge about logical disk/partition structure... I did it in both ways... on the other hand, clonezilla is not designed to "image" to a smaller disk, once the image is created, i do not know about any "easy" way ( other than the two I mentioned ) to restore it to a smaller drive.
Mike
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
We want to replace some old harddrives (500GB) since some died and bought new harddrives as cheap as possible (320GB). Please don't tell me if we pay peanuts, we get monkeys. It was my bad idea and I would like to come out of it without harm.
The PC run on win xp without internet-connection. Not perfect, but reasonable, because the old erp does not support win xp anymore. It works perfectly. Everyone knows what to do. Backup is working perfectly as well and so on. Migration would cost time, education of staff, and so on...
To install freshly with a "new" win xp from CD is hazardous, and needs to be done by several consultants, which is a risk in itself and of course time-consuming.
Therefore we would like to copy a booting 40 GB-system-partition of windows xp from the old hdd(500GB) onto a new harddrive of 320 GB. Space enough left, for a DATA-Partition we don't really need, because DATA other then programs and system is saved on the server, which is backuped daily.
What I have right now is:
a full clonezilla-backup device-image, standard-configuration of the 500GB-hdd.
I also have a gparted-copy of the system-partition of 40GB.
What I've tried so far:
Copy with gparted 40 GB systempartition to new 320 GB hdd(doesn't work), Boot Original-XP-CD go into "R"epairconsole,
Next try:
Boot clonezilla, just for the heck of it, knowing from experience that could be a problem:
device-image, beginner, not enough space
Next try:
Boot clonezilla, expert, no warning-icds-option and then k1.
That didn't work either.
next idea
My next move will be to restore a windows-backup from years ago, which was just 250GB. Then I want to replace the folders e.g. Windows inside the new 250 GB-partition on the new 320GB-hdd with knoppix from the gparted-partition-copy of the 40GB-systempartition of the old 500GB-hdd. What do you think, would that work?
Thank you for your input!
other options:
restore the clonezilla images to a VM ( 500GB or larger ), boot gpared live, shrink all partition(s) so all combined sizes will not exceed 280GB ( or 250GB ) ( make sure that there is no empty space between the partitions ). Create a clonezilla backup of the VM drive, manually edit the size of the disk (in sectors) listed in sda-pt.parted so it does exceed slightly the total size of combined partitions (eg: +1 Gig ), save ( keep the original as a backup ), boot clonezilla, and restore to the 320gig disk...
copy all files from 500 to 320GB disk, copy MBR without partition table ( first 446 bytes ) from the original drive, copy the "hidden data" starting after first 512bytes and 1 MiB, and boot the system. ( basically create partitions on 320GB, format, copy the data, and re-create the MBR )
none of these two processes is "easy" and requires some knowledge about logical disk/partition structure... I did it in both ways... on the other hand, clonezilla is not designed to "image" to a smaller disk, once the image is created, i do not know about any "easy" way ( other than the two I mentioned ) to restore it to a smaller drive.
Mike
An additional possibility to
Clonezilla cloning to a smaller HDD.
Look for the attachment.
Last edit: Fuchs 2015-02-14