Clone W11 / W10 to smaller HDD if sufficient empty space


jimbo45

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Hi folks
Cloning a Disk to a smaller one doesn't always work easily using Macrium -- I've got a few older 128 GB SSD's and I want to use Windows 11 from a 512 NVME device on to another system

This method though works a treat -
1) Create a bootable version og GPARTED and boot it
2) Create partition table on the target drive - select GPT for UEFI systems or MSDOS for MBR / Classical BIOS systems
3) for each partition on the source drive select copy from the GPARTED menu
4) on the target drive select paste -- you can adjust partition size and then select apply
5) do until all partitions copied.
6) its usually a good idea too to change the UUIDS of the partitions on the target disk -- especially if both disks are fixed in the same system. One word of warning though -- Windows might want re-activating if you change the UUID of the EFI partition -- shouldn't be a problem as you are on the same hardware.
7) boot Free Macrium and use the "Fix Windows boot problems" to easily recreate the boot loader on the target Disk

Enjoy !!

Note any other partition manager that has copy and paste functionality should also work. The GUI of all these partition managers is pretty much the same

Recommended though to use a stand alone bootable partition manager for this purpose though.


Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP,7,10,11 Linux Arch Linux
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    2 X Intel i7
Macrium & Acronis

Acronis takes care of this size problem automatically.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS - Home Build
    CPU
    Intel i7 4790K LGA 1150
    Motherboard
    ASUS Z97-WS
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    32GB
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    ASUS Essence
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    BenQ 32inch 4G
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In such case, I use an option "Shrink Volume" in Disk Management to reduce the volume size to equal or less than new drive. It may be not very easy, sometimes need to repeat this with deleting the pagefile or swapfile, because Windows not always is able to move these files to an empty place closer to begin. Anyway I think this is more safe way than counting on Macrium or Acronis.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro; Windows 8.1 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    i7-12700K (Alder Lake)
    Motherboard
    Asus PRIME Z690-M Plus D4
    Memory
    16 GB (2x8 Corsair DDR4-2132)
    Graphics Card(s)
    Asus GeForce 1050 Ti, 4 GB
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Philips 235PQ
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Windows 11: Samsung SSD 870 EVO, 500 GB (SATA), MBR
    Windows 8.1: Samsung SSD 980 PRO, 500 GB (M.2), MBR
    PSU
    Platimax D.F. 1050 W (80 Plus Platinum)
    Internet Speed
    Local link 1 Gbps, provider's line 500 Mbps
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Other Info
    Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller (for Windows 8.1 compatibility)
    Microsoft Office H&S 2013 x64
Macrium & Acronis

Acronis takes care of this size problem automatically.
Hi there

I've had bad experiences with Acronis in the past so that's one I will avoid - but like all these things thank goodness there is a choice.
Some might use AOEMI -- not sure about that one either - but I know zillions on these boards use Macrium so was just a suggestion if people happen to get into that problem. All valid suggestions though are always appreciated - with complex things like Windows there's usually several ways of doing particular tasks.

@Slavic -- shrinking a volume sometimes doesn't give you the same choice - with any decent partition manager you can usually set the size at will (so long as the source will fit into the target). Being able also to change the UUID is sometimes a good thing to do as well.

Here's the GUI of Gparted (I'm running from a Linux laptop but it's identical in the stand alone version)

Screenshot_20210912_095950.png

Here I want to make the '/' (the root partition) a bit bigger while making the /home partition a lot smaller on a new drive.
Easily done -- no formatting etc of target drive either.

Works brilliantly too for Windows type partitions. simply copy source partition and select target drive and select paste - set size or leave the same as default. repeat for each partition. !! For "Cloning Windows" to a second drive changing the partitions UUID probably a good idea too so the correct drive is booted.

Cheers
jimbo
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP,7,10,11 Linux Arch Linux
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    2 X Intel i7
Hi folks
Cloning a Disk to a smaller one doesn't always work easily using Macrium -- I've got a few older 128 GB SSD's and I want to use Windows 11 from a 512 NVME device on to another system

This method though works a treat -
1) Create a bootable version og GPARTED and boot it
2) Create partition table on the target drive - select GPT for UEFI systems or MSDOS for MBR / Classical BIOS systems
3) for each partition on the source drive select copy from the GPARTED menu
4) on the target drive select paste -- you can adjust partition size and then select apply
5) do until all partitions copied.
6) its usually a good idea too to change the UUIDS of the partitions on the target disk -- especially if both disks are fixed in the same system. One word of warning though -- Windows might want re-activating if you change the UUID of the EFI partition -- shouldn't be a problem as you are on the same hardware.
7) boot Free Macrium and use the "Fix Windows boot problems" to easily recreate the boot loader on the target Disk

Enjoy !!

Note any other partition manager that has copy and paste functionality should also work. The GUI of all these partition managers is pretty much the same

Recommended though to use a stand alone bootable partition manager for this purpose though.


Cheers
jimbo
You have obviously not used V8. No need for all these shenanigans.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro + others in VHDs
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS Vivobook 14
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    I7
    Motherboard
    Yep, Laptop has one.
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    16 GB
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    Integrated Intel Iris XE
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    Realtek built in
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    1 TB Optane NVME SSD, 1 TB NVME SSD
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    72 Mb/s :-(
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    Edge mostly
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    TPM 2.0
I use Partition Magic to shrink the source such that it will fit on the destination. You can either shrink in advance or on the fly.
 

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  • OS
    Windows 11 Insider Preview (VM on Hyper-V), Windows 10 Pro
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    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Home brew
    CPU
    i7-13700 Passmark rating = 38841
    Motherboard
    Asus Prime B760M
    Memory
    32 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
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    Sound Card
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    Asus 27" on KVM switch
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    1920x1080
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    Kingston 120 GB SSD system dr., 1TB Gigabyte M.2 MVNe data and 1 TB M.2 PCie @ 20 Gb/s virtual drive storage, 2 TB WD HDD
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    Thermatake 500w
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    MATX Desktop
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    3'rd system is a Minis Forum NAB6. Intel Core i7-12650H CPU, 10 Cores, 16 Threads. 32 GB DDR4 Memory. 500 GB NVMe PCle, 500GB SSD Passmark rating = 23683
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    Plex Server is Minis Forum UM450. AMD Ryzen5 4500U, 6 Cores, 6 Threads. Passmark Rating = 11039. Running W11 Pro. Also have 2 seldom used laptops: HP Pavilion 11M-AD113DX Laptop (W11 Capable), W10 Home, Dell Inspiron 13-5368 Laptop, W10 Home + Apple mini, circa 2012
It's easy to shrink partitions in Macrium Reflect when cloning.

Right here is the simple solution:

In Reflect, select your source disk and click "Clone this disk". In the first step of the wizard where you specify the source and destination, select your smaller SSD as the destination. Then start dragging your partitions down from the source to destination one at a time, working left to right, but when you get to a partition you want to shrink, drag it down to the destination, click it down there, and select "Cloned partition properties". Change its size on the destination as desired, then proceed with any remaining partitions.
Smile
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Homebuilt
    CPU
    AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT
    Motherboard
    ASUS ROG Crosshair VII Hero (WiFi)
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
  • Operating System
    Windows 11 Education
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Dell Inspiron 7773
    CPU
    Intel i7-8550U
    Memory
    32GB
    Graphics card(s)
    Nvidia Geforce MX150
    Sound Card
    Realtek
    Monitor(s) Displays
    17"
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Toshiba 512GB NVMe SSD
    SK Hynix 512GB SATA SSD
    Internet Speed
    Fast!
You have obviously not used V8. No need for all these shenanigans.
Hi there
I haven't got round to V8 yet -- sounds much easier !!!
@NavyLCDR -- I've found Macrium V7 doesn't work decently when moviing to a much smaller partition -- I wanted to move a Windows system from a 256GB SSD to a 128GB system SSD -- the "C" partition on the source drive was allocated at 232 GB of which only 56GB was used. The Macrium copy had the partition properties greyed out for specifying a size for target partition and just running the Macrium copy it said insufficient space. The GPARTED method complicated though it might seem just worked perfectly. (Even when I deleted everything on the target drive before trying again.

Note for these sorts of operations is best not to run from WITHIN WINDOWS if that's the OS you want to copy / clone / move.

Thanks

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP,7,10,11 Linux Arch Linux
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    2 X Intel i7
Here using Macrium as well, with no problems shrinking partitions.
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • OS
    Windows 11 Pro
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Manufacturer/Model
    Intel NUC
    CPU
    i3 8109U
    Motherboard
    Intel
    Memory
    16GB DDR4 @2400
    Graphics Card(s)
    Intel Iris Plus Graphics 655
    Sound Card
    Intel / Realtek HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    LG-32ML600M
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Intel SSD 250GB + Samsung QVO SSD 1TB
    PSU
    Adapter
    Cooling
    The usual NUC airflow
    Keyboard
    Logitech Orion G610
    Mouse
    SteelSeries Rival 100 Red
    Internet Speed
    Good enough
    Browser
    Chromium, Edge, Firefox
    Antivirus
    Windows Defender
  • Operating System
    CentOS 9 Stream / Alma / Rocky / Fedora
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    TOSHIBA
    CPU
    Intel i7 4800MQ
    Motherboard
    TOSHIBA
    Memory
    32GB DDR3 @1600
    Graphics card(s)
    NVIDIA Quadro K2100M
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD Audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Built-in
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
Have now got Macrium V8 -- works OK !!

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows XP,7,10,11 Linux Arch Linux
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    2 X Intel i7
Have now got Macrium V8 -- works OK !!

Cheers
jimbo
Managing different size drives is a doddle with V8. That is one of its new great features.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro + others in VHDs
    Computer type
    Laptop
    Manufacturer/Model
    ASUS Vivobook 14
    CPU
    I7
    Motherboard
    Yep, Laptop has one.
    Memory
    16 GB
    Graphics Card(s)
    Integrated Intel Iris XE
    Sound Card
    Realtek built in
    Monitor(s) Displays
    N/A
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    1 TB Optane NVME SSD, 1 TB NVME SSD
    PSU
    Yep, got one
    Case
    Yep, got one
    Cooling
    Stella Artois
    Keyboard
    Built in
    Mouse
    Bluetooth , wired
    Internet Speed
    72 Mb/s :-(
    Browser
    Edge mostly
    Antivirus
    Defender
    Other Info
    TPM 2.0

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