I have a 160GB HDD with two partitions, both NTFS (yes, you read correctly), with sizes 137GB and 23GB. I also have an 80GB HDD with two partitions (also both NTFS), with sizes 68GB and 12GB. What I want to do is to clone the 137GB partition in the larger drive to the 68GB in the smaller drive.

I thought about using dd, but there is the risk that not all data will be copied. Then I heard that I could use Gparted to resize the 137GB to match the 68GB partition. But the problem is that both HDD's were partitioned assuming a */16/63 geometry, and if I use Gparted to resize the 137GB then the "cylinder" boundaries will no longer be maintained, because Gparted assumes a */255/63 geometry.

Per the request of a family member whose computers I'm working on, I must maintain the */16/63 geometry on both HDD's. With that restriction in mind, is there a way to override the geometry settings in Gparted so that it would report HDD info using the */16/63 geometry? If not, is there an alternative partitioning program (for Linux or DOS/Windows) that will respect the */16/63 "cylinder" boundaries when resizing NTFS partitions?

If no such alternative partitioning program exists, is there any other way you can think of to clone the 137GB partition into a 68GB partition, maintaining the "cylinder" boundaries of both? Reinstalling is really a chore (family member uses XP64, and some "tricks" were necessary to make it work with all of the hardware), and it was done only 3 months ago, so I'd rather not do that if I can help it.


01

Welcome to LQ!!

My sense here is that you may be making this too difficult. Tell us the end goal---eg why you need to do all this. Maybe there is an easier way.

Some partial answers:
Correct, you cannot clone a larger partition to a smaller one---it will simply stop when it runs out of room on the smaller.

Having partitions that are not aligned to cylinder boundaries is not normally an issue.

If the "family member" is that concerned with the geometry, then he/she is also presumably concerned about the contents---you do not want to be attempting to re-size those partitions without having all the data backed up.

You don't say how full the larger partition is---and, regardless of that, it may need to be de-fragged before re-sizing.

Try clonezilla live

Could you explain how this would help in cloning a large partition into a smaller one? For example, does it include re-sizing utilities?

For OP: Something called "NTFS-Resize" just popped into my head. I've never used it, but you might want to check it out.