How to Clone a Bootable Drive (Clonezilla)

[@karmicselling4252]

Thank You Drew. Your video makes this process look so simple. And it is !!! Worked a treat cloning a HDD with multiple partitions to an SSD. Breathed new life into a several years old Notebook PC. Cheers from the Land Down Under.

[@TheTheaterWiz]

Worked like a champ, thank you! I went frrom a 500GB internal SSD to a 2TB internal SSD. Just to see what would happen, I left both drives in the laptop on the final reboot and Windows disabled the source drive on startup. This is great because I can leave it diasbled for a while while I run the new drive, and when I'm convinced all is well, I will reformat the source drive to be used as more free storage. So far, everything is working perfectly and it appears all data is there on the new drive. Your video saved me a bunch of time and money on software.

[@ws8061]

Great turorial man, you've gained a new subscriber. I'm a CAD guy so kinda tech adjacent and you have to be a little tech savvy to excel in this field but I've worked for several companies who contract IT through a 3rd party and unless you get lucky and link up with a really good tech most of them would sh*t themselves trying to do stuff like this, really kinda sad honestly, but I love stuff like this because when they tell me "impossible" I can come to stuff like this and even for a dummy layman like myself this is very followable and doable (I feel like dual booting used to be way more complicated but last time I did it it was from a mac 5-8 years ago). Thanks again, I really do appreciate stuff like this. I've fiddled with virtual machines with virtual box some as well just out of interest and I didn't use it this time because I'm a bit out of my depth but I've got a feeling you've got a good bit of content on them as well and look forward to diving in and really learning how to take advantage. What's the point of having terrabytes of storage and endless RAM if you aren't going to use it and one of the coolest developments from increased storage and computing power is the ability to do in software what previously was only achieved with a software hardware combo, best example of this to me is software defined radio, with a laptop and basic antenna and hardware that fits in a backpack we can do 1000x more than my Grandfather did with basement full of hardware as a HAM radio operator. Amazing time to be alive if you're the type that can get lost in these kinda problems.

[@AdamKueflef]

As someone who is starting to enter the tech field my goal is to be one of the good techs you'd luck your way into. I hate the general technical ineptitude of most people and want to be the furthest from that as possible

[@alecj5469]

Thank you for this video! I'm a complete Linux n00b and you helped me get through this without any hassles. Thank you for the detailed explanation of what you were doing as you were screen sharing. Keep it up!!!

[@blakehosler3662]

This video was a great help for me. I was unable ro use gparted to resize the windows partition. I used gparted only to move small end partition to the end of drive, then used windows disk manager to extend system partition. Big thanks !

[@coopdedooped]

I’m very tech-illiterate but this tutorial was perfect and i didn’t screw anything up, thank you!!

[@NollieFlipX]

Oh I forgot to mention, I loved this tutorial, pretty good stuff. Straight to the point

[@ynnebbenny]

Thanks sir, well done. I have a special HD that if it fails will take forever to remake. I have wanted to clone it for ages using CZ but have been too scarred. Your tutorial has given me more confidence.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Thanks. Glad I could help. Let me know if it works.

[@robertliebert-hereth8218]

Next time, assume people have no idea, so take your time with steps, You're good up till the boot manager, then you zoom through without taking time to assume someone doesn't have an extensive computer background

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Okay.

[@Mike-gq9bv]

I thought everything was super clear!

[@str-m2]

@@Mike-gq9bv Yes everything was clear up to the Gparted thing.

[@ceqell]

as a complete beginner i think he could've been clearer in what some of those other options could do just in case i wanna do those but everything else is super clear and i successfully used clonezilla with no issues

[@icefire5799]

Lol and there i was vomplaining to myself about the "unneeded" intro explanation 😅

[@GoodNewsJim]

This is a high quality video. Well presented. I'm 46 and been in tech since age 3.

[@reticulating_splines]

Great video Drew, you just helped me replace / upgrade my C drive for the first time ever :))

[@RicardoUcXiu]

2:00 Download Clonezilla 3:44 Boot using Clonezilla 4:16 Yeah, he's cloning from virtual disk to another virtual disk 5:39 Cloning finished 5:53 You have to do something more if you have a bigger target 6:24 Get gparted so you can edit partitions (yeah a live image) 6:49 Boot into gparted please 7:32 Basically you're going to expand a partition (you don't want to waste all that free space do you?) 9:57 Don't forget: you have to check the disk before doing all this… 10:28 Back to gparted 10:50 We're done :) 11:05 What if I want to clone a big partition to a smaller target? 11:32 Move your partitions 12:31 Reboot into Clonezilla 13:07 Skip checking destination disk size beforecreating partition table (-icds) 14:05 We have to do another check disk… 14:30 We have to expand the source partition again with gparted (it's very important) 14:55 And that's how you take a bootable drive and clone it to another drive and have the target drive bootable

[@InvP22]

Great Tutorial. You just gained +1 subscribers and thank you very much for the efforts you put into making this video.

[@SusanAmberBruce]

Hey! I want to thank you for your video, I just cloned Windows 11 from 500 G byte M.2 drive to 1 T byte M.2 drive, it was easy-peasy, now I got room for more games Hara!

[@lenny108]

But how many hours does it take to clone a 250 GB of data hard drive? If this takes ten hours then it might be better to make a fresh install?

[@SusanAmberBruce]

@@lenny108 It doesn't take that long, plus if you do a fresh install you lose all the programs you installed and all your personal settings, which can be quite extensive for some.

[@subhadeepmandal1374]

Seriously this many steps to just copy your c drive is insane. Why couldn't it be easier? Aren't we supposed to upgrade our PCs and just keep buying new ones. Thanks for the video man. Microsoft sucks.

[@Freshi142]

Excelent tutorial! Everything working splendid! Thank you

[@connivingkhajiit]

Good video thanks. I probably could have figured out clonezilla myself but it would have taken longer. Going from a 120GB SATA drive to a 1TB pcie gen 4 NVME for booting is crazy.

[@jacksonvillereclaimedwood6709]

Really good video dude! You are a super star. I will be trying Clonezilla!

[@NikosOutdoor]

Awesome! You are the perfect guide for beginners, very good job!!

[@rickg672]

Fantastic, one of the better explanation on the subject. Thanks.

[@furypesto]

Thanks. Couple steps were different for me but i was successful! Appreciate the video.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Glad it helped! What steps were different for you?

[@socaldave4475]

Thanks!

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Thank you so much!

[@lidiatorresprado]

Excellent explanation and video, thanks a lot.

[@kaneyen5220]

thank you for this video, your demo is pretty clear and useful for backup my system.

[@elements88xyz]

highly appreciate you for this tutorial lad. am looking forward to giving it a go myself. thank you.

[@PapaMike23]

Great video, but I'm a little confused with the part beginning at 6:00 (i.e. when you used Gparted) I think you meant to say "there's a little bit of extra work that we got to do to make it so that you can use the full capacity of the target drive IN A SINGLE PARTITION"? As there was /dev/sda4 between /dev/sda3 and the unallocated space, it is not possible to increase the size of dev/sda3 to take up the unallocated space, as they are not contiguous. Therefore /dev/sda4 had to be moved to the end, which is not possible to do while Windows is running, so GParted had to be used. A different partition using the unallocated space could have been created without GParted though. Is my understanding correct?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Close. It’s that Windows Disk Management can’t move partitions. Yes you could just create a new partition on that space, but that wouldn’t be ideal.

[@PapaMike23]

@@DrewHowdenTech Thanks!

[@reoscorpio]

Hello Drew.. i have a question. In your example here, you used Virtual Machines as your Source and Target. I have VMware, and i'm able to make VMs, but i'm trying to clone my physical drive on my laptop to another SSD. In that case, do i even need to use VMs? or can i just use Clonezilla on a USB Disk to assign my Laptops SSD (as the source) to the External SSD? 4:04 "Device to Device" .. Also, when you did the chkdsk, the disk you were checking was the cloned disk, correct?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Yes, you can run Clonezilla off a USB flash drive.

[@reoscorpio]

@@DrewHowdenTech Super.. Thank you for the Christmas day reply.. After doing a lot of Clonezilla research, i found Rescuezilla and that's going to be my weapon of choice

[@Dopamine-.-]

Does that also work if the source sector size is 512 byte and the target is 4k ? I'm trying to clone from hdd to nvme

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Not sure. Never tried it.

[@Dopamine-.-]

@ Thank you for your fast response. I have been trying for the last 13 hours to move Windows from my built in hdd inside the laptop to the new NVMe ssd which is also newly installed on the laptop and I want it to be my main drive

[@DrewHowdenTech]

What issues are you having?

[@TacticalT0MAT0]

Followed steps exactly. Worked but new cloned drive was not working with WiFi adapter drivers. I tried booting old drive to see if WiFi would work, and after I did that both SSDs are bricked. Everything gone. I don’t know what to do.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

So sorry to hear that. What error message are you getting when you try to boot them?

[@Hedron-Design]

Unzippeed to usb. rebooted selected the usb as boot device. got the message "Insert usable bootable device and reboot, select any key." Cannot boot off the clonezilla usb. I double checked the USB it has all the unzipped files on it.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

I later realized that the unzip method only works on UEFI. Check the description for a video on how to make a bootable drive.

[@zdravkobozhilov5453]

Can't we just use the built-in Windows "Disk Management" tool to manage the unallocated disk space?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Unfortunately Windows Disk Management can’t move the recovery partition out of the way (you need GParted for that).

[@Ratseeker]

For some reason, Gparted shows my partition extension. But later when opening Windows 11 it does not reflect the change. Going back to Gparted again, it still shows the partition as extended. Despite it not showing on Windows.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Weird, is it possible that you’re booting from the source drive and not the target?

[@Ratseeker]

@DrewHowdenTech I was cloning my second nvme slot drive. From 512gb to 4tb. It cloned, but the Gparted goes through no problem. But doesn't show on windows.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Did you disconnect the source drive after cloning? If not, do that.

[@arturbedowski1148]

Hi, thank you for this tutorial, I've copied my disk to ssd with way much more memory (hdd has 80GB, sdd 950GB) I am trying to do gparted part to expand my disk, my main space is right next to unlocated, but I cant expand it anyway, main difference i can see is that my smaller particions are on one side and yours are sandwitching the main ones. Idk if this is what i have to change so idk if i should do sth i dont know. Please, can you tell me what may be wrong? Now Im using the newest version of gparted, 1.5.0.6

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Is GParted showing a warning icon on your main partition? If so, right click the partiton, then click info, and let me know what the warning message is.

[@arturbedowski1148]

@@DrewHowdenTech it doesn't. My main partion (/dev/sda5) is right next to unallocated, i can move it but when even if it shows space to be expanded (there is more space to drag it atound) I cant expand it (i gry to drag points next to partion, it shows symbol like on stretching a picture and yet when i drag it it doesn't follow

[@arturbedowski1148]

@@DrewHowdenTech i works only on my windows laptop, so i have to plug my Linux disc via adapter, can this be an issue?

[@arturbedowski1148]

@@DrewHowdenTech only Linux swap (if turned on) and fat32 can change sizes

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Do you have a partition within a partition?

[@breixo13]

I followed all the gparted steps but the disk still has only half of it usable even though in gparted it shows the whole disk is being used

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Weird. If you post screenshots of what you're seeing on my subreddit (r/DrewHowdenTech) I can help.

[@piska4f]

For me, using a tool like MiniTools Partition Wizard worked... I just hit "Extend" on the main partition and there it shows the unallocated space as available for extending...

[@4RunningHorses]

Great tutorial. My BIOS is not listing the USB drive. Can't load Clonezilla. 😢

[@DrewHowdenTech]

I later realized that the unzip method only works on UEFI. Check the description for a video on how to make a bootable drive.

[@4RunningHorses]

@@DrewHowdenTech Thanks. I reformatted the flash drive, repeated the process (a couple of times), and, eventually, it worked.

[@YMG-97]

Awesome tutorial, I had to use Rufus to make the Gparted work with the ISO file. Although at this point I am finding it difficult to figure out how to format my only driver for additional storage since my computer does connect to the SSD and HD simultaneously. I cannot format using disk management as is not allowing for the option. wonder how can I fix this.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

First of all, make sure you've selected your target drive in GParted (there will be a dropdown menu that allows you to switch between drives when you have multiple drives connected). If there is another partition in the way of your C: partition, you will have to move that partition out of the way before you can extend your C: partition. NOTE: You have to use GParted to do this. It cannot be done in Windows Disk Management.

[@greenwhatevers6263]

Clonezilla worked, just doing the gparted bit. need a bit of clarification for the download for that because i downloaded it and it downloaded as a disk image, instead of zip and wouldnt boot on my laptop so i had to use another video to find out how to get gparted to run. have now ran gparted and it seems to be stuck on the screen before it boots into my desktop. ive ended up using the command prompt to sort it out for me.

[@RodolfoJrMapa-uj1pu]

Hi, so if the source drive has 1tb capacity and has 2 partitions, 1 partition drive c has 200 gb data which I want to clone to bootable disk since it has the OS, the other partition drive d has 700 gb allocation but total data stored on this disk for drive c and d is 700 gb. So it is not possible to clone since the target disk is only 235 gb ssd? I only want to clone the drive c partition which is 200 gb which has the OS since my target ssd is only 235gb but I tried almost every tutorial in KZbin but nothing seems to clone this partition and make the target disk bootable. Do you have other way for this? Thanks

[@DrewHowdenTech]

In your case, I would copy the partition using GParted.

[@RodolfoJrMapa-uj1pu]

Okay thanks, I’ll try it.

[@ApolloMclaren]

I was trying to clone a windows OS from an sd card to my internal drive on a partition. I used expert settings and hit accept on the defaults after selecting the 2 partitions. About a minute into cloning it said it couldn't find the partition that I was cloning to and that the kernel version might be outdated or something. Then it aborted and now Steam OS on the internal and Windows OS on the sd card won't boot. Did clonezilla just corrupt all of my files or is there a way to fix this? I don't even want to do what I was doing before anymore I just want to be able to boot at least one of my two broken OS.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

So, as stated in this video, and by Clonezilla itself, the target drive gets erased as part of the cloning process (hope you didn't have anything important on there). So that definitely wouldn't boot if a clone fails. As for your source device, how does it show up in a partitioner (because your source device should still be bootable)?

[@ApolloMclaren]

@@DrewHowdenTech source device and target device are identical as they were before. I chose PARTITION to PARTITION not drive to drive so it should have only erased the target partition. Instead all it did was mess with the boot files of both OS. The files are all still in tact on both.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

What was on your target partition? Also, how do these drives show up in a partitioner?

[@ApolloMclaren]

@@DrewHowdenTech the target partition was empty

[@ApolloMclaren]

@@DrewHowdenTech its 600gb and 400gb on the SSD and 512gb on the SD

[@piska4f]

Thank you! It worked but only thing that didn't was resizing the drive again... apparently, it wasn't alligned properly or something... using a tool such as minitools partition wizard and extending through there works... in gparted, I couldn't see available space to resize no matter what... I was in the right drive and tried to resize the right partition...

[@DrewHowdenTech]

If there is a partition in the way of the partition you want to extend, you will have to move that partition out of the way first.

[@yaakovwaxman4807]

Great guide! Will this work for cloning a dual-boot ssd? I boot windows 11 and linux mint from my current 256 GB ssd, and i want to upgrade to a 1 TB ssd.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Yes.

[@yaakovwaxman4807]

@DrewHowdenTech Awesome. Thank you for the quick response!

[@bobw1111]

Your video was excellent, but I still have 1 problem. After following through, the destination drive looks identical to the source drive, except there is some unallocated space at the end (it was a bigger drive). The drive however does not boot. I am using Linux Mint Thanks

[@DrewHowdenTech]

What error message is it giving when you boot the target drive?

[@bobw1111]

@@DrewHowdenTech I have an old PC with Win 7 on it. I use Linux Mint on a USB hard drive and normally boot from there. I wanted to make a clone of that Linux drive in case I need it. I followed your video and everything seemed to work great. I then compared the two drives and they both looked the same (except for the extra space on the target). When I try booting with the new drive, Windows 7 boots, even when I use F12 and select boot from USB Thanks

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Is it possible that you cloned the wrong drive?

[@bobw1111]

@@DrewHowdenTech No. I cloned the USB HDD that I use to boot Linux. When I was done, I compared it to the new drive and they are the same. The old Windows drive is also very small and could not be mistaken

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Try unplugging the Windows drive and see what happens with just your target drive connected.

[@whatzause]

I used clonezilla and SUCCESSFULLY cloned my Windows10 C DrIve bit for bit to a same-sized HD. The cloned drive was so identical to the source, that even the drive signature was identical. When I allowed windows to change the signature of the clone, the clone would not boot. The CMD-listed data (under DISKPART) no longer displayed the descriptor, “boot.” Because you cannot have 2 installed drives with the same signature (i.e., the same “Disk ID”). How can I get the clone to boot? (Bios boot ordering does not do it.)

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Try removing the source drive from your system and see if the target drive will boot.

[@whatzause]

@@DrewHowdenTech Thank you; that’s what I wanted to do, but I opened the tower Dell 3660 Precision, and it’s a nightmare getting at the drives. Even trying with the service manual. You can’t tell what’s what. I decided it’s got to be a software method. For example I could go into BIOS and DELETE the C drive, thus leaving the clone (G:) as the only bootable drive left and see if the BIOS will use it (even w/o the “boot” showing). The Boot data is present on the drive but this method may or may not force it. -The other problem is, after that trial, how to UNdelete the C drive.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

I know this may seem like a dumb question, but have you tried selecting the target drive in your boot menu, or putting the source drive all the way at the bottom of the boot order?

[@whatzause]

@@DrewHowdenTech my last sentence said that BIOS boot ordering did not work. By “ordering” I meant changing the boot sequence. (In other words I used the wrong word.) However I didn’t try putting the source at the bottom. I’ll try it now but I don’t think it’ll make a difference. BTW, Here’s what I wrote to a local friend just a few minutes ago: For weeks and days, I’ve tried, researched, studied, thought, and questioned avenues to accomplish a means to boot my (KNOWN) successful clone of system drive C. All (including those tried) have proved difficult, questionable, inscrutable, or impossible. What remains is just to delete C from the BIOS drive list to force BIOS to select and boot the clone as the only bootable prospect available, when it doesn’t find C. I have learned that, although getting drive C back on the list in BIOS is an involved process, at least all C drive’s data will remain intact. I will reclone C first, so that the disk ID will be the correct value again (I had to change it from having the target and source both being the same). And then delete C, and try to boot the clone which will be identical bit for bit copy of C. This has a high enough probability of succeeding for me to risk it. All I can lose, if it fails, is “convenience”-i.e., the time needed to manually restore things. (Changing the boot sequence in BIOS has not worked.)

[@whatzause]

 P.S. Thanks for your caring efforts, and sticking with me. I don't quit easily and I'll get some kind of solution or alternative eventually. I might even tackle opening the case again, with stronger resolve!

[@kramsniggah4333]

Thanks Drew, I still don't understand this at all. I'm running windows 11 on a laptop with nvme drive. Do I need to install clonezilla on a usb stick first. Boot from clonezilla from the USB stick, plug in my new external nvme in a case. Using clonezilla installed on the external nvme I simply cannot proceed. Any help? thanks

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Yes you need to install Clonezilla on a third USB drive.

[@jeffa.johnsoncas6122]

Great information. Only thing is, after selecting usb from boot menu… it clonezilla Live doesn’t appear. I think a step about making a usb bootable is missing.? Hmm I’m stuck

[@DrewHowdenTech]

How did you create your USB?

[@stevenmin4902]

Followed instructions and the drive has been cloned. However, I cannot boot anymore. Both bootable drives startup and then show a black screen with just the mouse on screen. Have had blue screens as well with some attempts of tinkering

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Did you select the beginner mode or the advanced mode?

[@stevenmin4902]

Beginner mode. I'm likely going for a factory reset at this point

[@stevenmin4902]

I'm thinking it might not be a corrupt drive bc I restored my drive to one dated Nov. 20th and the same issue occurred.

[@stevenmin4902]

@@DrewHowdenTech managed to figure it out. had something to do with the BCD settings and i had to reinstall it with windows disk utility

[@Jidoxkdnxnx]

Where is the video regarding gparted you said you would link??????

[@DrewHowdenTech]

It should display in an info card. If not, check the description.

[@AlexeKokota1]

In gparted my drive is set as bitlocker and not ntfs I don't get why

[@DrewHowdenTech]

It’s because you have BitLocker enabled. I would disable it before going through with this process (at least temporarily), and then you can turn it back on once you are done.

[@reece2080]

Great video! Super helpful

[@lloydvdw]

Awesome dude! 🤓 Thanks a lot

[@NollieFlipX]

7:00 I think windows Partition Manager can handle the partition expansion after cloning to a bigger drive right?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

It depends on how exactly your drive partitions are laid out. If there is a recovery partition in front of your main partition (like in this video) then it won't work, and you have to use GParted to move that partition out of the way in order to expand your main partition.

[@jordan_777.]

Thanks man! Helped loads! I plan to migrate to Linux very soon. I plan to use a bootable Linux Mint drive and slowly migrate all my software from windows on to that drive and then eventually use Linux Mint as my daily driver. Once I'm ready to use only Mint and have fully integrated all my software, could you let me know, would it be possible for me to clone the bootable Linux Mint drive to my main ssd and allocate the remaining space to Mint with CloneZilla?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Clonezilla doesn’t do partitioning (that’s what GParted is for), but you can certainly use it to clone drives.

[@PassMeTheSauce]

Great tutorial but i have 2 questions. 1) can i just add clonezilla and gparted on my ventoy drive? I'd assume yes, just to make sure 2) 9:09 i'm booting on the new cloned drive, right? Thank you for your time.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Yes, and yes.

[@PassMeTheSauce]

Thank you very much :))

[@thecrimsonedge8335]

I've successfully booted into gparted, but now I'm hungup on the screen at 7:07. What do I do?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

If you're not sure which options to select, just keep hitting enter until you get into GParted.

[@xSpaceInvader]

This didn't work for me. I keep getting the blue screen of terror. I tried Cloning a SanDisk 125g to a 1tb WD Black sn850x. I'm using a Asus Rog GL702VS laptop. I'm not sure if its just not compatible or I'm just dumb. I've tried clonezilla and EaseUS. It will work as a USB drive but not as my boot drive. Every time I try to boot it the new drive blue screens. Put my old ssd back in and it boots just fine.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Try changing your boot mode from UEFI to Legacy.

[@socaldave4475]

Drew, thanks for the video. You talk very fast, but I was able to follow along while pausing. Anyway, you should've re-recorded the portion where you admit to forgetting the chkdsk portion and done it in the correct sequence. So tell us, when we go into the chkdsk portion, are we rebooting to the new target drive? Also, should we run chkdsk BEFORE Gparted? And why did you need to go back into Gparted after chkdsk to expand only the main partition again and not both?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Answers to your questions: 1. Yes. 2. Yes. Before and after. 3. For clarity, anytime you do any kind of operation with a Windows drive, whether it be cloning it or making changes to partitions in GParted, you have to chkdsk afterward, otherwise the next operation you try on that drive will fail.

[@socaldave4475]

@@DrewHowdenTech thanks Drew!! Can you link the video on how to put Gparted on a bootable USB? I’m having problems

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Check the description.

[@socaldave4475]

@@DrewHowdenTech Hi Drew! Thanks so much for your prompt replies. I am running Windows 11 and I'm running into the same error whether I use Etcher or Rufus to create a bootable drive with Gparted .... "Verifying Shim SBAT sata fails : Security Policy Violation. Something has gone seriously wrong: SBAT self-check failed: Security Policy Violation" I've seen there's modifications to registry, but wanted to run it by you before attempting this. Thanks so much!

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Disable Secure Boot in your BIOS to resolve this issue.

[@neilquinn]

2 questions: If I'm going upgrading a 256gb laptop SSD -> a bigger USB (512gb) via USB enclosure first, (1) any issues with cloning via USB as the target "local" drive, and (2) what was that small partition you just wiped out when extending /dev/sda4? I feel like the entire Gparted section you were just wiping and moving stuff around without a great explanation for why or what the various leftover unallocated or tiny partitions were. "gparted just does that" doesn't make me feel good about leaving them there.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

1. While I never tried it, I don't see why you would have any problems cloning to a USB drive. 2. I didn't delete any partitions. GParted leaves a little bit of free space when you expand a partition, just for performance reasons. I assure you that I am not just creating/deleting 1 MB partitions out of nowhere.

[@akhilbhadoriya]

I cloned ubuntu from 250 gb ssd to 2tb hdd using clonezila live on usb drive using the option device to device. Cloning is successful,(i can see used space is same in both drives using gparted) but I can't boot from cloned hdd. I tried from both uefi and legacy boot, secure boot on and off but none worked. Cloned drive isn't detecting as bootable drive. Please help

[@DrewHowdenTech]

I made a video three years ago on how to fix Ubuntu’s boot. I would give that a try. By the way, here’s the link to it: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qWexqnmYirVksJI

[@sutrotka3828]

When booting into gparted, it doesn’t launch the graphical menu for me. Just will sit at the boot up window. What am I doing wrong?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

You need to select an option in the boot menu.

[@DJ.Truman]

This saved my life.

[@mariovelasco7093]

Additional notes: (troubleshooting) Initially my laptop didn't didn't boot into gparted and gave me some error message before shutting down. Fix: I went into the bios and turned safe boot off. Then once in gparted, my new m.2 nvme drive wasn't detected so I had to restart into BIOS and switch from raid to ahci. Once everything was done and setup, I went back into BIOS and switched back into safe boot and raid mode. I did this because I don't really know what I'm doing so I decided to stick with my original settings.

[@mariofanl1ve]

Whenever I moved my windows installation to my SD card whenever I boot into the SD card it just says reset system for a split second then restarts, which is not an issue when booting into my main drive. I've attempted this twice.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

What options did you select? Also, does your source and target drive have the same partition table?

[@julienramirez5686]

I'm having issues, when I go to the boot menu and choose usb it still loads my default HDD, am i doing something wrong (going from HDD to M.2)

[@DrewHowdenTech]

How did you get Clonezilla on the USB?

[@unoriginalname3442]

Stupid question, I have a linux mint live boot flash drive that has gparted on it, would I be able to use that instead of install gparted only?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Yes. Definitely!

[@zuhair95]

Thanks a lot; what if the source is two hards (RAID 1) and needs to clone to two hards (To be RAID 1 also). What is your suggestion, please?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

I've never worked with RAID arrays before, but I assume these would show up as one single drive in Clonezilla. In that case, you would need to have all four drives connected to your system (the two sources and two targets). The two sources would show up as one drive, the two targets would show up as another single drive (I think). You would then select the source RAID array as your source drive, and the target RAID array as your target drive. Of course, your target drives would need to be configured as a RAID array. That being said though, I can't be sure Clonezilla will even recognize your RAID arrays, or be able to work with them. Especially since you haven't told me anything about your RAID setup (other than that they are RAID 1). Are you using hardware RAID or software RAID?

[@gigabit12]

Hi Drew, would selecting the option on Clonezzila to check the data instead of skipping the process, avoid the chdsk use on windows?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

No it wouldn’t. Windows/NTFS is very particular about formatting.

[@DvlprHsn]

Thanks man such a nice tutorial.

[@NealPT]

Video would have been much better if you had concentrated a little more on the options. Some I didn't even have time to read and had to go back and look.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Good suggestion. Perhaps that’s where people end up going wrong.

[@Capt_Quimdell]

Cant find the instructions on how to flash gparted...

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Should be linked in the info card. Otherwise, check the description.

[@brimans3092]

I've gone with Seagate Disc Wizard which is free to use...

[@DrewHowdenTech]

You can also use that, but it's not open-source.

[@brimans3092]

​@@DrewHowdenTechwhat has open source got to do with getting ssd drive into a computer?

[@JimCronin-l6k]

my usb rive does not boot it say no operating system what goes on?????

[@DrewHowdenTech]

When I made this video, I didn’t realize that the process shown for making the bootable USB only works on UEFI systems. If you have a legacy BIOS, check the description for a separate video on how to make a bootable USB.

[@JayDeBee]

Great video, thank you!

[@47drummer47]

how do you go about making flash drive bootable after putting Clonezilla on it. when selecting USBon boot it only shows the files to select rather then booting. I am trying to clone my 243 GB with windows 11 to added disk 1 tb disk internal.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Is it bringing you back to the BIOS boot menu?

[@47drummer47]

@@DrewHowdenTech I ended up using a third party software to make it bootable and used the iso version. It worked well and easy to use over all. But now i am having a problem getting the unused partition back as usable with C:. I initially used a different 3rd party disk management tool which corrupted boot files. i believe it did copy my original hard drives number. I had to fix corrupted boot files and turn my original hard drive offline. its running but for now only have the same accessible memory. after the scare form the corrupted boot up files from trying to gain the full memory to the C: I am little concerned to try it again with Gparted

[@47drummer47]

⁠​⁠@@DrewHowdenTech just a quick update I tried using gparted but upon booting it showed a bunch of errors containing error loading nivida and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth but loads after its shows a big list of the same errors on a few different pages to show language selection and stuff. Then once selecting all defaults it stays on the black command page with the no warranty

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Maybe try running GParted from a Ubuntu install media?

[@victorhugovaldezsoto]

Great video! Thanks!

[@Squirbel1]

Thank you so much for the tutorial.

[@alf8718]

What I don't understand is WHY do You even bother with Gparted it's a great tool, don't get me wrong but why not use Windows boilt'in tools to extend the partition (use the allocated space)

[@DrewHowdenTech]

It’s true that you could use Windows Disk Management to RESIZE a partition. But if there is a recovery partition that you need to MOVE, Windows Disk Management can’t do that, and you have to use GParted.

[@SusanAmberBruce]

Is that copy of windows using MBR?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

No, it’s GPT/UEFI.

[@SusanAmberBruce]

@@DrewHowdenTech okay thanks, very helpful video, I just bought a M.2 NVMe 1tera byte and I want to clone windows 11 to it from a 500 gigabyte SSD drive, do you have any advice about this other than what's in your video, thanks

[@xx_3happypig3_xx26]

Do I have to use a different pc to get GParted on my flash drive? It won’t let me boot into my pc to get to google to download it.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

In this case, yes.

[@zaddyluks]

Great video. Quick question. I’ve a new SSD 512GB and my HDD 500GB. So when I apply the first method… when do I disconnect my Source to Target. And will i need another USB or i can use the same one i have my OS in?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

You would have them both connected to the computer you are running Clonezilla on at the same time.

[@zaddyluks]

@@DrewHowdenTech Thank you❤️❤️

[@8oXweaponXo8]

I was following along with you so when you forgot to chk dsk i did too! Thanks man really screwed me.

[@catfood9707]

For windows NT 3.51 apparently you don't need to go and do the disc check. Also you need to know the cpu architecture for the gparted and clonezilla in order to boot. The tutorial used x86 and that's for multi core processors(think 64 bit processors with two or more cores) The one below on the site is for single core processors. (Think cpu back in the windows XP 32 bit days)

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Thanks for sharing.

[@xrafter]

This man is teaching me how to clone! Wait

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Yes! This process works for both Windows and Linux drives, as well as non-OS drives (that are just used for data storage).

[@heinzmuriuki6883]

Would it also work on Windows server? Am trying to clone my windows server.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Yes. Should work for any OS. Only catch is that on Windows, if you have to use GParted to modify partition tables on either drive, you have to chkdsk that drive before doing anything else.

[@moist_potato2037]

Hey idk If you still respond but when I click the usb device to go into clonezilla it just boots into windows

[@DrewHowdenTech]

How did you flash it?

[@liangyuaq-qoyunlu407]

look like gparted is the most powerful partition manager out there

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Not sure about the MOST powerful, but definitely a lot more so than Windows' partition manager!

[@louise1021]

When I clone my drive onto a new NVME it has only cloned the boot partition when I look at it in gparted. None of the data is cloned, just a 2.5 GB boot files or something like that. Do you know why? :0 I did everything in Ubuntu on my current system/drive without booting into seperate USB drives like you did.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Is your target NVME drive’s capacity greater than or equal to your source drive’s capacity?

[@louise1021]

@@DrewHowdenTech It's greater.

[@louise1021]

@@DrewHowdenTech On gparted my system drive is split into 2 drives but I only use one name disk. And only the smaller of those 2 without the user data and / mount point(? Is that the name) appears in clonezilla.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Do you mean that you have two separate drives, or that your drive has two partitions?

[@louise1021]

@@DrewHowdenTech Two partitions on one drive.

[@brushfd]

I don’t know if you are still replying to comments here, but does my drive that when I’m doing this do my drives connect through usb or sata?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Doesn't matter. You can use either-or.

[@adriansillsii8809]

Amazing tutorial. How do you make GParted bootable? Just downloaded as a raw ISO file. Also, could we just diskpart?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Use a program like Balena Etcher. If you only need to EXPAND partitions, then Windows diskpart would work fine. However, if you need to MOVE partitions in order to expand other partitions (like I had to do in this video), then you will need GParted.

[@adriansillsii8809]

@@DrewHowdenTech Thank you for responding.

[@overgrowthj4612]

In the video, you were cloning directly to the final drive you wanted to use, but what would you do if you had to use a 3rd drive, like using an external drive for example? Would you clone from your source drive to your external, then clone from the external to your final drive? Also, by going through this while process, do you still have to install windows on the final drive you want to use? Or does the cloning automatically take care of that?

[@overgrowthj4612]

Also which video of yours shows how to use gparted? I can't find it when I look it up

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Yes you can use an external drive as an intermediary in the way that you have described. Just be sure that there is nothing on either your intermediary or target drives, because they WILL BE ERASED during this process! Also, cloning makes a bit-for-bit copy of a drive to another drive. In other words, absolutely EVERYTHING on the source drive will be copied, including the Windows installation. As for how to use GParted, I have demonstrated that in this video, and in another video where I went over how to use four different partitioners-GParted being one of them. Click the link below to watch: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aYfHpIebor2Bjtk

[@cbbcbb6803]

What if I want to Clone a non-OS drive? That is to clone a data drive.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

You can use the same procedure in this video, without the chkdsks.

[@DoctorQ9]

Well done!

[@axi6ne8us]

How do you clone to NAS external hard?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

Using the same method as in this video. You will just need some way to connect your NAS drive to the computer that you are doing the clone on (e.g. a Hard Drive dock).

[@louisaubert8882]

Hi, i'm doing almost the same thing i wanna make a dual boot but a copy of a VM and a copy of the main os. Your video was a usefull ressource thank u

[@brooklynbradley]

For a variety of reasons, this did not work, especially since Clonzilla wants to use VGA displays. Haven't had one of those for years.

[@shocked-curry-omelette]

The VGA mentioned here is the display resolution. It can run on monitor over any connector type: HDMI, DP, VGA, etc. > this did not work at which point in the video do you face issue? If you have a dedicated graphic card installed, you may need to make sure your monitor is connected to the GPU. Some AMD cpu doesn't have an integrated graphic card

[@brooklynbradley]

@@shocked-curry-omelette No worries, I found other software that was easier to use, problem solved. I had to update my internal C Drive SSD from 256 GB to 1TB. The trick was that I had to use in intermediate HDD since I only have one SSD slot. It took some time, but I was finally able to update without losing anything off of my original C Drive.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

@shocked-curry-omelette Thank you for your response.

[@AadeshGurav-q4j]

Drew, you should look into the camera more.

[@abh-itsanamazingworld6283]

Thanks for some great info.

[@DrewHowdenTech]

You’re welcome.

[@LeonTReal]

Hey Drew, I've got a question. Is it necessary to use GParted? Couldn't you simply use the built-in Windows partition manager? And if not, why so? Thanks in advance

[@DrewHowdenTech]

I suppose you could. However, GParted gives you a lot more control over your partitions.

[@LeonTReal]

@@DrewHowdenTech Thanks for the quick response and advice, appreciate it :)

[@flamindigo]

none of that worked on my system

[@DrewHowdenTech]

What happened?

[@generalshakewell]

How after all these years is this program still absurdly overly complicated?

[@DrewHowdenTech]

That's why we make tutorials.

[@connivingkhajiit]

Its better than how its done outside clonezilla, manually cloning blocks

[@Suspicious_fish.]

Ty! So helpful