Copy to smaller disk

[piotrekjan]

Hi Folks,

Short question - I've made a raw copy (image file) of disk that is 80Gb big. However the data takes only ~8GB. Can I copy this image to 20Gb drive ? Will the hdd raw copy proceed either it will not allow to peform such operation ? How to deal with raw copy to smaller drive ?

Thanks in advance for feedback and sorry if someone already asked about it but I didn't found such topic/

[pepe]

Hello,

Even if the data is at the beginning of the partition (which is usually not the case), file system objects might be (and usually they are) located on the higher LBAs, so the OS would run into some problems sooner or later for sure.
try resizing the partition first, then clone it.

pepe

[piotrekjan]

Hi,

Thanks for tip. However even if I resize the partion to much smaller and leave rest as unalocated, then hdd raw copy will make image with size of whole disk. However I understand that when I will load this image to smaller disk, even if it interrupts because of space lack the part of this image on new disk should work because smaller partion will be already there ? What about allocation table with these cylinders and headers and so on ? This will be incorrect in case copy to smaller disk ?

BR,

[pepe]

the purpose of resizing is that no file system objects refer to anything outside the resized partition. So you won't have to worry about that.
I don't really know the tools available for you to do raw copy, but an intelligent one could be configured to copy a part of a disk.
or use dd or ddrescue on linux.

pepe