Hi,

I have one partition /dev/sda1 which is of size 10G
Its actual usage is 950M.

I want to make a copy of it in /dev/sda2 which is of 1G in size.
Is it possible to :
dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sda2
resize2fs /dev/sda2

I tried the above command and it fails to resize again.
Or can we rsync it :
rsync -avzp /mnt/sda1 /mnt/sda2

Though rsyncing works its much slower.
Also I am not fully sure of Symlinks or Hardlinks being replicated properly alongwith other permissions and ownership issues.
Will I need to add more parameters of rsync ?

dd is very fast and if there is a way, nothing like it

OK, so you're letting us know it failed, but letting us know the actual error you're getting could help as your command line seems OK. Did you try zeroing root-reserved blocks (see tune2fs if extfs) before resizing the copied partition?

No is the answer.
The dd will fail when the target fills. At which point the filesystem (in the target) is incomplete - read invalid. Hence any of the e2fsprogs tools (including resize) will fail.
Wait for the rsync (or similar) filesystem aware tool to complete. Data validity is more important than impatience.

tar should work or other file based may be a better choice.

One can in some cases dd to a file then back to the smaller drive but it would be better to shrink the original to equal to or smaller than target then dd it.

Hi,

tar -pzcf /file *
works but is some what slower.

The problem is it says that the superblock is having the wrong size of 2621440 (4k) blocks while the actual size is 262144 (4k) blocks. And then its asks to abort.
I know that this is because of the DDing of the partition, but isnt there no way to update the size to the correct values ?

Regarding the main issue in syg00's post can you please first confirm /dev/sda2 is an identical copy (as in 'sha1sum /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2') of /dev/sda1 before you resize slash continue?

Why not image(clone or backup) the partition, using clonezilla, then resize the original using something like gparted-live?
If you make a mistake atleast you have a backup copy that you can restore.
Gparted-live checks for data loss before making the actual changes.

"The problem is it says that the superblock"

Boot to a live media and try using a file check?? Dunno if that would work but it is simple enough to try.

Hi,

The sha1sum fails.
Might be because of the fact that /dev/sda2 is on 1G in size.
/dev/sda1 is 10G in size and has 950 MB in usage only.

I think syg00 is right that there is no easy way of DD and then resizing.
All e2fsprogs fail.

I failed to read your OP well enough to notice you're not copying and then resizing it. It's not a problem with the tools themselves but understanding how tools work. If no space remains then I agree: use rsync or tar.