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The process of cloning an internal hard drive onto an external one is pretty well described by online guides, but I can't seem to find any info on the opposite.

I want to replace my internal SSD with another one (I'm on a laptop, so I can't just plugin both SSDs at the same time). I've cloned its content to an external HDD and I would like to know if it's possible to copy the external HDD to the one installed.

I have thought of installing Ubuntu on the new SSD, but I'm not sure if I can copy the partitions of the external HDD to the internal while the PC is booted from the internal.

Would booting from an Ubuntu USB stick and doing the cloning from there work? Can I use the dd command for an external HDD, too?
I'd appreciate any help.

zx485
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ShinyDemon
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    I would boot Ubuntu on USB stick and clone the ssd when none of them are not mounted as root. I think that's the simplest way to do it without special software. – Bernard Wei Dec 03 '18 at 23:06
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    As long as the destination drive is larger than the source drive, you can use clonezilla to clone them, and then gparted to adjust partitions. You'll have to boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB and install clonezilla, or create a Clonezilla DVD. – heynnema Dec 04 '18 at 00:24
  • Please don't cross post your questions on different stackexchange sites. – Kev Inski Dec 04 '18 at 04:29
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    Maybe this link can help you avoid some pitfalls. You can clone with dd (simple but risky and slow), or with Clonezilla (boot a USB pendrive or DVD disk made from a stable clonezilla.iso file; safer, faster). Good luck :-) – sudodus Dec 04 '18 at 13:08
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    I believe in a new clean install. Then you can restore from your backups. That then is a good test your backups are complete. And if not everything to make system complete, you still have old drive to find missing data. When hard drive fails you will not have old drive to go back to, so need good verified backups. https://askubuntu.com/questions/545655/backup-your-home-directory-with-rsync-and-skip-useless-folders I also export list of installed apps to make it easy to reinstall all of them. http://askubuntu.com/questions/17823/how-to-list-all-installed-packages – oldfred Dec 04 '18 at 13:16
  • @Kev Inski I am glad that this question was posted on both sites. I would have never seen it, if it was only posted on the other site. – C.S.Cameron Apr 05 '20 at 06:50

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