clone hard drive to smaller hard drive

digity · 01-06-2009, 04:09 PM

how do I clone my 80 GB drive with Ubuntu 8.10 (70 GB free) to a smaller 40 GB hard drive?

pixellany · 01-06-2009, 04:13 PM

If you mean raw, brute-force cloning, you don't. The two options I would consider:

1. Resize the Ubuntu partition(s) so it(they) will fit on the smaller drive, then clone.

2. Install Ubuntu on the smaller drive and copy your data. This is the safest way to go.

I think there are cloning utilities that will also do re-sizing, but I have no personal experience.

digity · 01-10-2009, 07:33 PM

So I went with the first option and resized the ext3fs partition (sdb1) of which Ubuntu is installed and successfully cloned it to the smaller hard drive using partimage (though I haven't tried to boot from the new smaller drive yet; I've done everything remotely so far, so I'm not in front of the actual computer). Do I have to worry about the Extended (sdb2) and linux-swap partitions (sdb3) in terms of cloning or was creating those partitions with gparted enough?

syg00 · 01-10-2009, 07:42 PM

I really (I mean *really*) don't like imaging like that - better to set up target partitions and use a filesystem copy (cp, rsync, ...).
You should be fine with the swap - although with Ubuntu (using UUID) you'll probably need to fix the fstab entry.

digity · 01-11-2009, 02:40 AM

booya! worked sorta like magic. had to re-install grub using Live disc (I got a grub error 2), but after I rebooted everything came up and I'm back to normal with a new drive. got my first Linux cloning experience under my belt, feels good. partimage is a gawd send

how do I know for sure I *need* to fix the fstab entry for swap?

digity · 01-11-2009, 02:54 AM

got swap's UUID by running <blkid> at the command line and updated the fstab.

so far, so good. am I missing anything else?

syg00 · 01-11-2009, 03:10 AM

Nah, you should be o.k.
But if not, you'll find out ...

Well done.

digity · 01-11-2009, 03:42 PM

Thanks, everyone!

bapigoo9 · 01-11-2009, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by digity

how do I know for sure I *need* to fix the fstab entry for swap?

Post your /etc/fstab