I have a Hitachi Ultrastar 2TB drive that is noisy. I would like to replace it BUT I have a dual boot system, Windows 10 and openSuSE. IF I use Linux dd will it copy the Windows portion and keep my dual boot?? I have looked on the Web but haven’t gotten a proper answer. I usually get one here… even though I have been gone for a while. Hope to be welcomed back with a proper answer.
Thanks and take care and have a good day.
Depends on what you copy. When you copy the whole disk, you wiil copy, well, the whole disk. Partition table, all partitions and all unallocated space. That is what dd is for: copying byte for byte everything without discrimination ;).
Important is of curse if your destination disk is at least as large as your origination disk. Logical isn’t that one?
But, when your destination disk is larger then your original AND the partition table is GPT, you will be able to use it, but you must then restore the copy of the GPT that is should be at the end of the disk. Because now it is no more at the end, but at the end of what was the end of the original. When you need help with that, ask.
Well thanks for the reply. The new hard disk will be the same size just a different manufacturer. Original is Hitachi and the new one is Western Digital. Hopefully this won’t mess up my Windows 10. It is an HP computer that came with Windows 8. Got the invite to change to Windows 10 during the initial setup and I did. I actually delayed the initial setup until I got some more memory and the larger HDD. Made the machine 32GB and 2TB. Now the HDD is making a growling noise. I have seen elsewhere that this is typical of the Hitachi drives even though when I first installed it … it was quite. Now it is fluctuating. Sometimes quite and others noisy… and I have the machine on my desk right next to me. But I have also been able to hear it in the next room. I leave it on all the time. So before the HDD crashes I thought that I would get another. More than you wanted to hear??
I know nothing about Windows, but assume that when you have a byte for byte copy of the disk, that will not matter.
A superfluous remark.
You need to boot from some other (third) mass storage (with some Linux life or rescue or what ever system) and have the other two in the system. Be careful, dd-ing from the wrong disk will not give what you want and to the wrong disk may destroy what you have now. So check and re-check what is sda, what sdb and what sdc.
Yes … thanks for the warning. I thought that I could boot from my DVD with both HDD’s installed and do a DD from the DVD. Sound good??
Yes, that is correct (it is BTW dd, not DD, this is Unix/Linux, D ≠ d ).
BTW, you say that both disks are the same size. I do not know how you know that, but thinking they are the same because the manufacturers say that they are so many GB or GiB is not enough. The same is the same amount of bytes (which is then a multiple of the block size).
As long as you do not overwrite the original disk, it can still be used as it is when something does not work during the copy.
And: @chucktr:
The Redmond folks can be quite picky and pernickety at times …
If the System Disk is swapped out, Windows may well note that, the Hardware has changed and, will begin checking the Licensing …
AFAIK Windows 10 only complains if you change the motherboard. I’ve migrated tree win10 installs to new disks (two desktops, one laptop), keeping the rest of the hardware, without the need to reactivate the licenses.
I used macrium reflect (a free windows software) to clone the disks, as it can deal with different sizes. I only used it to clone windows disks (openSUSE installs are on different drives) but IINM it has (or had) support for linux disks too.
Hi
HP machines come with the license key in the system BIOS, press F10 at boot to check… else there are tools to get the key (I use ProduKey). Hence, new disk always do a fresh install to get rid of all the cruft…
I always use a local account, when it asks (on Home), just drop the network connection when it asks, press the back arrow, then go forward and can create a local one, it indicates a limited experience, but not seen that… connect the network and rock on…
I got a minipc last month, quad core celeron N5095, dual boots with WinXI Pro and MicroOS desktop, did upgrade the SSD to a 500GB one from 128GB…