Storage Solutions Cloning partition to a smaller Harddisk

A

Arjun

Skilled
Is it possible to clone a windows partition from a 80gb drive to a 40 gb drive, i want to transfer the windows installation from 80gb to 40 gb disk

Both drives have two partitions -

80 gb - C: 33 gb (windows) 11 gb used

D: 41 gb

40 gb - C: 16 gb

D: 20 gb

I want to clone the C partition of 80gb to the C partition of 40gb , D partition in 40gb has data which i dont want to loose.

I was thinking of using easeus disk copy Free Hard Disk Copy & Data Backup Freeware. Free PC & Server hard drive copy, disk clone, disk backup, disk Image and partition copy software. to get this done using its sector by sector copy feature.

Can this cause any problems?
 
What you need is not partition cloning but just Recovery feature of that software (backup). Create an image of your C:\ partition. What the backup software will do is that it will just backup the data into an image file & you can recover it on any new/old HDD. Just make sure you are recovering on a partition which is larger in size than the created backup image...
 
You don't need a boot cd for easeus disk copy, i have it installed now, i will attach the second hdd tomorrow and try doing this with easeus disk copy first.

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---
XTechManiac said:
DriveImage XML will suffice your needs. Note that it runs from within Windows. Creates images of logical drives/partitions and restores these to either the originating or a different hard disk.

EASEUS Disk Copy is a great alternative if you don't want to backup from within Windows. So obviously this requires that you create a boot CD. Read the nutshell review at Lifehacker.
Click to expand...
I dont think DriveImage XML will work will smaller drive, FAQ from their site-
Q. Can I restore the image to a smaller partition?

A. No, currently you can only restore your data to a partition that is exactly the same size or larger, regardless of the data size.
Click to expand...
DriveImage XML Data Recovery Software FAQ - Runtime Software Products

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---
HailStonE said:
What you need is not partition cloning but just Recovery feature of that software (backup). Create an image of your C:\ partition. What the backup software will do is that it will just backup the data into an image file & you can recover it on any new/old HDD. Just make sure you are recovering on a partition which is larger in size than the created backup image...
Click to expand...

Easeus support has also told me to use ^ this method using EASEUS Todo Backup software, cloning the partition using easeus disk copy wont work because boot info will not be copied.
 
HailStonE said:
What you need is not partition cloning but just Recovery feature of that software (backup). Create an image of your C:\ partition. What the backup software will do is that it will just backup the data into an image file & you can recover it on any new/old HDD. Just make sure you are recovering on a partition which is larger in size than the created backup image...
Click to expand...
This method worked for me using EASEUS Todo Backup software
 
Will these softwares create a new boot drive. What happens to the original installation. Even I want to transfer my boot drive to another drive, since am left with 500MB on my C:

What about drive letters..?
 
asingh said:
Will these softwares create a new boot drive. What happens to the original installation. Even I want to transfer my boot drive to another drive, since am left with 500MB on my C:

What about drive letters..?
Click to expand...

Yes they can create new boot drive, explain what you want to do , i exchanged my download rig with my sisters PC without exchanging the HDD & i didnt want to reinstall windows on my sisters PC, thats why i did this,
In your case you can just resize your C drive and add more free space to it from the D drive using easeus partition master.
 
Okay, this is the situation I have. You can see that the OS drive is almost finished. Should I extend it from E:. I can remove stuff from there. But when I right-click, the extend option is greyed out. Just need like 10-12 GB more on C.
Drives.jpg
 
i'm afraid u can not clone a disk to a smaller one using sector level clone. clone disk by file level might work for that.

as long as the used space on the 80gb disk is smaller than 40gb, it can be cloned to the smaller disk, while the data on the 40gb disk will be overwritten.

here's a disk clone tool from easus which works well to me.
 
Back
Top