[clug] duplicate a file system to a smaller hard disk

[Jack Kelly]

On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 9:58 PM, Chris Zhang<chris.zhang.syd at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been looking for a way to clone a complete working Linux system on a
> 250GB (22GB used) hard disk to a smaller hard disk. A lot of places
> mentioned dd, but the destination will have to be at least as big as the
> source. I have thought about creating an image of an appropriate size and
> copy everything from the bigger hard drive onto that image and use dd to put
> the image onto a smaller disk. I guess some work will also be needed on
> setting up the partition table and bootloader on the smaller harddisk.
>
> It is just a thought and I don't have a clear idea as to how exactly I am
> able to do it. Does anyone have any ideas? I am very open to completely new
> approaches.

Perhaps you can boot a livecd, set up the partition table and such on
the target disk, set up the mountpoints and then use cpio to copy from
your current disk to the target one? You'll probably have to fix
/etc/fstab and the bootloader after you're done.

-- Jack