Linux – How to perform system migration to a smaller drive using the unix/linux tool dd

linuxmigrationpartitioningssdunix

I am trying to migrate a windows 10 from a 1TB HDD to a 256GB SSD, and I want to use the easiest free way with dd (the Linux/UNIX clone tool)

I do have the source drive partitions shrunk such that they are smaller than the target's space, and it is unallocated space after it in the source drive. There were EFI FAT32 partition and windows 10 OS NTFS partition

I have done it in the past where the target drive is bigger than the source, so the only thing I did after dd if=/dev/sd<source> of=/dev/sd<target> was simply expanding the partition in windows' diskmgmt.msc

However, I am not sure if it is safe to do the similar way when the target drive is smaller than the source drive. (while the payload in the source is smaller than the target so that)

Any advice is appreciated! thanks!

Best Answer

/dev/sda is the entire drive. I'm not sure if you want to copy/clone the partition-table and master-bootrecord. /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2 etc. are the partitions. You can create dd images for each partition and restore accordingly to your SSD.

Related Solutions

How to Shrink a Windows 10 Partition

There seems to be absolutely no need for any third party software.

I have followed the instructions here, and I successfully shrank my OS partition in about 10 minutes. Running under Windows 10, but I doubt it makes a difference here.

The steps are:

Disable hibernation.

At a an elevated (admin) command prompt, run the command
```
powercfg /h off
```
Disable pagefile.

Open the System page in Control Panel (from “This PC”/“My computer”, open the Properties). Click “Advanced System Settings”, then in the “System Properties” dialog's “Advanced” tab, open the “Performance” settings, go to the “Advanced” tab, click “Change...” under “Virtual memory”, untick “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives”, select the drive you want to shrink, select “No paging file” and click the “Set” button.
Disable system protection.

In the “System Properties” dialog as above, go to the “System Protection” tab, click “Configure...” and select “Disable system protection”.
Restart.

Now the three files that were preventing partition reduction are gone. Reduce partition size, and then restore the three items.

If Disk Management complains that “There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation.” even though you entered a size that should work according to Disk Management's own figures, see Cannot shrink C: partition: Not enough space

I have later found similar instructions at other places, all of them mentioning only these 3 items.

Cloning HDD to a Larger HDD

Right click partition E in MiniTool Partition Wizard, change the location between this partition and the Unallocated space with Move/Resize feature. Use the same method to move the unallocated space to be after Linux Swap. Then, you need to use Linux partition tool like Gparted to move the unallocated space to be after partition C. At last, go to Windows Disk Management and take the un allocated space to extend partition C.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to Shrink a Windows 10 Partition

Cloning HDD to a Larger HDD

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