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I have an old laptop with a failing internal hard drive (that cannot be easily taken out).
I want to install the same version of Windows (Windows Vista, 32-bit).
How can I image the internal hard drive to an external hard drive given that the new external drive is smaller than the internal hard drive? (the amount of data on the internal hard drive is less than the capacity of the new hard drive)
Will I face any issues (for example, driver issues)?
(I was going to boot up a virtual machine, install Windows then turn the VDI into ISO, then burn it to new external hard drive, but then I heard about driver issues)
xlxbbqbub
Posted 2018-04-29T19:13:13.750
Reputation: 1
2You can do image backups with Clonezilla perhaps for the Windows OS "C" drive / partition and then push that to the new drive. If the new drive is smaller, that may be a problem with OS image if that partition if the entire size of the drive but if you can still boot Windows, try to shrink it down to a smaller size, create an image with Clonezilla and push to the new drive. Many Google info out there on it plus YouTube videos to get you started, Clonezilla is open source and FREE.... You can do it!! – Pimp Juice IT – 2018-04-29T20:25:26.593
I’m not sure I follow. What exactly is your goal? Creating a backup image of the internal drive? Or cloning the internal drive to the external drive? – Daniel B – 2018-04-29T20:51:31.083
@PimpJuiceIT Then do you know if there will be any issues doing this? I think I read something about the way Windows load things that the external drive won't be properly booted from – xlxbbqbub – 2018-04-29T21:05:07.100
@DanielB I am trying to clone the internal drive to the new external drive (then have the laptop boot from the external drive) – xlxbbqbub – 2018-04-29T21:05:50.470
1Windows (non-PE) will refuse to boot from USB drives. Unfortunately, your endeavor is infeasible. – Daniel B – 2018-04-29T21:08:58.747
If you have an external drive to use and connect that is blank, there is no harm in trying. You may be able to tell the machine firmware to boot to the external drive and disable the internal and then it may be possible but I'm not sure. What's the make and model of this machine and is it USB externally connected or something else? – Pimp Juice IT – 2018-04-29T21:17:38.043