Shrinking partition when cloning but without modifying original drive

Gąska

I want to clone a drive to a smaller drive. The original is 500GB with 5 partitions - one "usable" with Windows installed, and 4 for UEFI and recovery shit. The latter 4 add up to like 18GB. The "usable" one is 460GB but only 100GB are used. The target disk is 240GB, so way too small for 1:1 clone, but more than enough to hold the data.

I know I could shrink the partition first and then start cloning. But I'd rather avoid modifying the original if at all possible. I also don't have any other drive that could act as a temporary scratch space. Is there any program that's capable of making an NTFS partition smaller when cloning it, without modifying the original drive?

And while we're at it - any caveats to look out for when cloning a working Windows installation to another drive and wanting it to still work? Do I need to make sure drive/GPT/partitions IDs match the originals or some other shit like that?

cabrito

@Gąska I think most clone software can resize partitions on the fly, after all Norton Ghost from 2003 was capable of that,

I know that Acronis True Image does, and if any of src or dst disk are Western Digital you can use the free WD Acronis True Image [0] [1]

With Acronis (and I suppose most modern windows clone software) there's no need to make adjustements after clone; with very old or Linux software maybe.

Edit: Norton Ghost 2003 can still clone MBR, non UEFI disk with size <= 1GB, but need a start with the Windows repair disk to adjust some ID. Not your case, only anecdota.

[0] https://wd-my-passport.com/western-digital-ssd-clone-software
[1] https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx

Tsaukpaetra

@Gąska said in Shrinking partition when cloning but without modifying original drive:

And while we're at it - any caveats to look out for when cloning a working Windows installation to another drive and wanting it to still work? Do I need to make sure drive/GPT/partitions IDs match the originals or some other shit like that?

Depending on the type of clone you do, you might need a Windows installation media to boot into repair mode and sync up the bootloader (should be basically automatic when you choose "repair") . Just make sure the original drive is removed from the system.

loopback0

@Gąska said in Shrinking partition when cloning but without modifying original drive:

And while we're at it - any caveats to look out for when cloning a working Windows installation to another drive and wanting it to still work? Do I need to make sure drive/GPT/partitions IDs match the originals or some other shit like that?

I did it with Macrium Reflect and it just worked.
Although I only used it to clone to a larger drive, it does support cloning to a smaller drive.

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