How to clone 1TB HDD to 400GB HDD.

[glitchmaster0001]

Hi so i have a Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD as my main boot and storage drive and i currenltly need it for a new system build. i have this spare 400GB seagate barracuda and i was wondering can i clone all the stuff in the 1TB drive over to the 400GB drive and use the 400GB as my new main drive? i only used 220GB of storage in my 1TB HDD so is it possible to move everything over to a smaller drive? thanks guys! 

[ItsMinJunLol]

I think u can just transfer files via I don't know, sata? For mac, u can just file transfer but I'm not sure about windows. If you only used 220 gb, then you probs can transfer all files there.

 

[Enderman]

just copy paste your files and documents

dont copy any windows or program files

[glitchmaster0001]

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

just copy paste your files and documents

dont copy any windows or program files

no i need to clone the entire drive including the OS since i need my 1TB drive in another system. 

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

no i need to clone the entire drive including the OS since i need my 1TB drive in another system. 

why not use the 400gb drive for the new system.

[glitchmaster0001]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

why not use the 400gb drive for the new system.

i cant since the new system is a server 

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

i cant since the new system is a server 

fair.

[Tenshi017]

You can get a free trial of acronis.  I think the free trial can help. 

[Energycore]

You can't exactly use a cloning tool to move a bigger drive into a smaller one since sequential disk cloning copies each sector. What you can do however, is install Windows on the 400GB drive, install all the programs you need and move all the files. It'll take a while, but I'm not sure there's a better option.

[Mark77]

I personally use parted magic for stuff like this.  Go in there, shrink the partitions down to ~380gb or so (ie: less than the size of the 400gb drive).  Do a dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/sdY bs=1M  command to actually copy the data.  Then run the re-sizer/partition editor to expand the partitions back out to the full 400gb size on the destination hard drive. 

 

 

[Enderman]

12 minutes ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

no i need to clone the entire drive including the OS since i need my 1TB drive in another system. 

cloning OSes is a bad idea

install windows on your other drive, move your files and documents over, then format the 1TB drive

[Energycore]

Just now, Enderman said:

cloning OSes is a bad idea

Can you elaborate?

 

I have quite a bit of tweaks that would take forever to redo if I ever moved my Win10 to another drive without a clone OS feature.

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, Energycore said:

Can you elaborate?

 

I have quite a bit of tweaks that would take forever to redo if I ever moved my Win10 to another drive without a clone OS feature.

stuff breaks

all kinds of stuff

 

some people cant even get it to boot after cloning

others have problems when trying to isntall windows updates

others have problems running programs, or trying to install/uninstall programs

others have problems accessing files on the drive

and a billion other problems I have seen from people cloning windows

[Energycore]

Just now, Enderman said:

stuff breaks

all kinds of stuff

 

some people cant even get it to boot after cloning

others have problems when trying to isntall windows updates

others have problems running programs, or trying to install/uninstall programs

others have problems accessing files on the drive

and a billion other problems I have seen from people cloning windows

Hm.

 

I guess I'll just redo the tweaks. I made them once, I can make them again.

[glitchmaster0001]

1 minute ago, Energycore said:

Can you elaborate?

 

I have quite a bit of tweaks that would take forever to redo if I ever moved my Win10 to another drive without a clone OS feature.

i really need to clone the entire drive over to my 400GB drive since i need that 1TB drive to be my main drive in another system. so your saying i cant just clone the 931GB partion over to the 380GB partion even though only 220GB is used up in the 931GB partion? i dont know much about data recovery but i need an easy solution to my problem right now. the last thing i want to do is to reinstall windows and manually move everything over. i kind of need a simpler and more straightfoward solution 

[Energycore]

1 minute ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

i really need to clone the entire drive over to my 400GB drive since i need that 1TB drive to be my main drive in another system. so your saying i cant just clone the 931GB partion over to the 380GB partion even though only 220GB is used up in the 931GB partion? i dont know much about data recovery but i need an easy solution to my problem right now. the last thing i want to do is to reinstall windows and manually move everything over. i kind of need a simpler and more straightfoward solution 

There might not be such a solution. Not that I'm aware, at least. It's certainly impossible to perform a sequential clone from one drive to another when the destination drive is smaller than the origin drive.

[glitchmaster0001]

1 minute ago, Energycore said:

There might not be such a solution. Not that I'm aware, at least. It's certainly impossible to perform a sequential clone from one drive to another when the destination drive is smaller than the origin drive.

can i shrink the 1tb drives main partion so that it is identical to the 400gb drive? then would it work? 

[Energycore]

Just now, glitchmaster0001 said:

can i shrink the 1tb drives main partion so that it is identical to the 400gb drive? then would it work? 

Yes, but in order to shrink a partition you have to format the rive as far as I'm aware. Perhaps I'm wrong though.

 

But this is why it's useful to partition large drives, so they can later be cloned to smaller vessels.

[Enderman]

4 minutes ago, glitchmaster0001 said:

i really need to clone the entire drive over to my 400GB drive since i need that 1TB drive to be my main drive in another system. so your saying i cant just clone the 931GB partion over to the 380GB partion even though only 220GB is used up in the 931GB partion? i dont know much about data recovery but i need an easy solution to my problem right now. the last thing i want to do is to reinstall windows and manually move everything over. i kind of need a simpler and more straightfoward solution 

its not a "simpler more straightforward solution" to try to clone a drive, have a bunch of windows issues or BSODs, potentially lose your data, and then have to do a clean install in the end anyway to fix all the stuff you broke

[glitchmaster0001]

1 minute ago, Energycore said:

Yes, but in order to shrink a partition you have to format the rive as far as I'm aware. Perhaps I'm wrong though.

 

But this is why it's useful to partition large drives, so they can later be cloned to smaller vessels.

no i see an option to shrink volume in disk mangement in windows 

[Energycore]

Just now, glitchmaster0001 said:

no i see an option to shrink volume in disk mangement in windows 

Perhaps it is doable then.

[glitchmaster0001]

2 minutes ago, Energycore said:

Perhaps it is doable then.

the worst case scenaro is that i just buy another 1TB drive and use that as the main drive in the other system but i really dont want to do that since i already have spare drive lying around and also i dont have funds to buy a drive since im still stuck on find a power supply for that system 

[Energycore]

Just now, glitchmaster0001 said:

the worst case scenaro is that i just buy another 1TB drive and use that as the main drive in the other system but i really dont want to do that since i already have spare drive lying around and also i dont have funds to buy a drive since im still stuck on find a power supply for that system 

I would say, if you can shrink the volume to below 400GB, then sequentialy clone that into the drive, it should be no problem. Since sequential cloning transfers the information on a bit-by-bit basis, there should be no data loss.

[glitchmaster0001]

4 minutes ago, Energycore said:

I would say, if you can shrink the volume to below 400GB, then sequentialy clone that into the drive, it should be no problem. Since sequential cloning transfers the information on a bit-by-bit basis, there should be no data loss.

so shrink my main partion on my 1TB so that its either equal to OR smaller then the target drive right? in this case my target drive is a 400GB HDD. 

[Energycore]

Just now, glitchmaster0001 said:

so shrink my main partion on my 1TB so that its either equal to OR smaller then the target drive right? in this case my target drive is a 400GB HDD. 

Yeah. To be safe shrink it below the usable 380GB number.