0

After reading on threads, I'm still confused and need your help. My laptop is Lenovo G580 20157 - 2 Hard Drives (sda and sdb)

sda(500GB) - SSD

sdb(250GB) - Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS

see the picture attached

I want to copy/clone my OS to SSD using: dd command sudo dd bs=4M conv=sync,noerror status=progress if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sda

As stated my OS is on sdb which I will use to execute the command in terminal.

  1. Can I execute the command while using the live running OS(sdb) to clone it into sda?
  2. After clone, does my previous hard disk(sdb) still have the OS and files - no changes?

Sadly, I can't boot clonezilla and gparted on bootable cd/flash drives because of bios issue.

Any comments/suggestion will be much appreciated thanks in advance guys keep safe :)

tom-askubuntu
  • 1
  • 1
  • If you can't access BIOS (probably UEFI, not BIOS) then you shouldn't be doing what you're asking here, at all, until you figure out HOW to access the firmware settings. Reason is even if you succeed in cloning the drive and bootloaders, in one way or another, you then must change the the boot options accordingly. – ChanganAuto Apr 19 '21 at 16:34
  • The dd will totally erase sdb drive and convert it to 250GB. Since UEFI, you probably have gpt partitioning and backup gpt partition is at end of 250GB drive. And you will not be able to boot with both drives connected as duplicate UUID/GUIDs are not allowed. Major repairs then required to "fix" sdb drive. Better just to do new install. – oldfred Apr 19 '21 at 17:07
  • Thanks @ChaganAuto – tom-askubuntu Apr 19 '21 at 18:18
  • Thanks @oldfred my plan is to copy and retain incase something went wrong. The old files from sdb to sda is there a workaround or idea? I'm using caddy drive on my laptop(sdb) and the dedicated is sda. If I successfully backed up the data to sda, I'll try to remove the sdb from caddy then instead placed my sda to it what do you think? – tom-askubuntu Apr 19 '21 at 18:29
  • What do you think on my idea above will it work?@ChanganAuto – tom-askubuntu Apr 19 '21 at 18:54
  • You convert 500GB drive to 250GB and have to do repairs to move backup gpt partition table to entry of drive & make other repairs with gdisk. Of course any data on sdb is totally erased. The use of dd is usually considered the worst way. It also copies all unallocated space as it is bit for bit, so often slower than other methods. – oldfred Apr 19 '21 at 19:22
  • Maybe you have an idea or workaround to retain the files? Please do suggest thanks in advance @oldfred – tom-askubuntu Apr 20 '21 at 06:56
  • Not using dd as it erases partition table, putting the 250GB partition table on the 500GB drive. If your data is at all valuable you have good backups on other devices & locations. I almost always suggest new install. But install to an external requires some work arounds. for flash drive, but same for all external drives: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1332371/creating-a-pc-boot-able-ubuntu-installation/1332433#1332433 – oldfred Apr 20 '21 at 13:40

0 Answers0