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I would like to replace a hard disk in my desktop with a smaller SSD. This hard disk has the following partition setup:

  • Linux ext4 partition (and related swap partitions)
  • Windows 7 NTFS partition
  • miscellaneous partition for file storage

I have tried manually copying partitions to the SSD and recreating the boot sector, but this has not worked well.

I would like to make a near identical copy of the hard disk onto the SSD minus the miscellaneous partition -- this way, all of the data will fit on the smaller SSD.

Is it possible for me to clone the hard disk, including the bootloader, to the new SSD EXCEPT for this "miscellaneous" partition?

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  • For moving boot sector try easy BCD;. For Windows partition use driveimage xml ; For Linux partition use dd command and you can manually create swap
    – Madhubala
    Commented Jan 16, 2020 at 10:36

2 Answers 2

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Sure, make an Ubuntu Live USB or something similar. Boot it, start gparted and delete your miscellaneous partition. If space isn't sufficient with deleting that partition you can even shrink another partition with gparted.

Then make Live CD or USB of Clonezilla. It is pretty much straight forward and easy to use. It does all the cloning for you, including bootloader,MBR,etc.

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  • Won't that delete my files though?? I don't want to delete the data on the partition, I just don't want to copy it to the new drive.
    – Ryan Rosario
    Commented Feb 19, 2013 at 22:01
  • Now I get you. You just want to keep that miscellaneous partition on HDD and clone the other partitions to SSD. In this case just use Clonezilla in expert mode (its not that difficult) and clone just the partitions you want.
    – kschurig
    Commented Feb 19, 2013 at 23:46
  • Thanks. Will that still clone the bootloader?
    – Ryan Rosario
    Commented Feb 20, 2013 at 4:15
  • I guess it is possible but I cannot say for sure.
    – kschurig
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 22:46
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Do a bit copy of the drive (using dd for example), until the new drive runs out of space. Then delete the half-baked last partition on the new drive.

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