Many thanks to all, and especially Nigel who has clearly described what is now Plan A.
I didn't even know about Clonezilla until Lennart mentioned it yesterday. Then I studied up and it quickly rose to the method of choice, and your detailed instructions have made it dead simple. Up to now I had made a system image and bootable USB recovery USB stick using the MS tools, but a proper clone seems a much cleaner way to do it. (Aside: in preparing for this, in making Kubuntu installation media, Windows recovery and Clonezilla Live, I've discovered that more than three quarters of my collection of USB sticks are useless -- unformattable, unrecognizable by the hardware, or now reporting capacity of 2MB. Miraculously, one of the remaining good ones is decades old with a bootable DR-DOS on it.) Fortunately I am not under pressure to shrink the Windows partition(s); the new drive is large enough that I can leave the existing Windows install as-is and still have plenty of room for the Linux install (as well as a shared-data partition). Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56 On Sat, Apr 30, 2022 at 8:54 AM Nigel Auger <[email protected]> wrote: > I also run multi boot Windows 10 and KUbuntu on my main two systems. Am > currently on KUbuntu 20.04 LTS. Here is my way of doing what you want to > do. > > I have used Clonezilla for years. I boot it from a USB stick. I use it to > make regular disk and partition backups as well as migrate and build new > systems. > > In my experience shrinking Windows system partitions is very problematic > due to unmovable files that Windows places high up in the partition. Years > ago I found this tool. It was free when I found it. If works (I used it > recently on an old Gateway machine with a hard drive) however I am > conservative so I take extra steps to ensure success. These extra steps are > a lot of work. Many probably wouldn't bother. I describe these steps > below. > > > https://www.diskpart.com/articles/shrink-volume-with-unmovable-files-4348.html > > NTFS access from linux - I have been accessing NTFS formatted large data > drives from Linux for years. NTFS support in Linux seems to be excellent > from my perspective. The only caveat is you will probably need to ensure > the mount command in the fstab file is configured to give your preferred > user full access to that drive. My systems are single user systems so it's > easy. For multiuser systems you are probably better to seek the advice of > others on this forum who are far more knowledgeable than I am. Here is an > example fstab entry I use: > > #UUID=F474B7AA74B76DCC /home/augern/WDp2 ntfs-3g > defaults,nofail,uid=1003,gid=1003,umask=000,dmask=027,fmask=137 0 0 > > MY STEPS to ACCOMPLISH WHAT YOU WANT TO DO > > 1) Use Clonezilla to clone your original M.2 SSD onto the new M.2 SSD. > Just use straight full disk image, NOT individual partitions because you > want to ensure all of the boot sector info is cloned. Since you are cloning > onto a larger disk this should just work. There will be empty space at the > end of the new drive. Use the beginner mode in Clonezilla. > > 2) Swap out the old smaller SSD and swap in the new larger SSD into your > target system. > > 3) Boot the system into Windows. You might have to reboot once or twice to > allow Windows to do whatever it does when the environment changes. > > Preparing and shrinking Windows. > > 4) Install AOMEI Partition Assistant. > > 5) If you have the patience, stamina, copy all user data such as > documents, photos, videos, etc. to a backup drive and consider temporarily > deleting them from the Windows system partition. As I wrote above I am > conservative so this is an optional step, probably not necessary but it > will reduce the burden on the partition shrinking tool. > > 6) Run Windows Disk Clean as administrator. You want to ensure all the > crap from Windows updates and upgrades is deleted. These files can run into > many gigabytes of data. Also ensure you click on the tab in Disk Clean and > select delete all old restore points as these files also can be quite large > and are unnecessary since you have a cloned copy of your system should > something go wrong and you need to start over. > > 7) From your administrator account in Windows disable hibernate and > disable the page file (virtual memory). Check to make sure the files have > been deleted. They are hidden system files. If they are still there delete > them. > > 8) Use AOMEI Partition Assistant to shrink your Windows system partition. > > 9) When finished shrinking the Windows partition, re-enable hibernate and > the page file and copy back over any user data files you deleted to speed > the process up. > > 10) Once you are happy Windows is stable and working, make a Clonezilla > backup image of the entire disk so that when something goes wrong during > Linux installation or some unplanned Windows Update and your system gets > wrecked, you can recover it in 30 odd minutes rather than having to start > over from scratch. > > 11) You are now ready to install your Linux system(s). Use the normal > partition tools to set up your disk the way you want it. > > > > On Fri, Apr 29, 2022 at 9:22 PM Lennart Sorensen via talk <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> On Thu, Apr 28, 2022 at 01:35:38AM -0400, Evan Leibovitch via talk wrote: >> > Hi all. >> > >> > This topic is one I hope will be on many peoples' minds as they >> encounter >> > frustration (and in some cases a dead end) moving their Windows 10 >> systems >> > to Windows 11. This may soon become the source of a multi-stakeholder >> > public campaign, but that's just in the planning stages. >> > >> > Now for the personal angle. >> > >> > Some ago I installed Windows on a desktop I use a lot. It replaced Linux >> > because that was incapable of running the one game I like playing. I >> even >> > gave a talk to GTALUG about that move, about Windows Subsystem for Linux >> > and the things I thought were better about the Windows desktop. >> > >> > Turns out I was wrong. So very, very wrong. And now I can't wait to go >> back >> > to my Linux desktop, especially since there's a recent LTS release of >> > Kubuntu, my traditional distro of choice. Plus, according to ProtonDB, >> my >> > game might just run well natively on Linux >> > <https://www.protondb.com/app/255710>! >> > >> > But it's been a long time since I've done this so I have some remedial >> > questions to ask from this group's wisdom ... to help me change from a >> > Windows install to a dual boot, priority Kubuntu: >> > >> > 1. My motherboard takes a single M.2 SSD for my one and only drive. I >> > have a larger M.2 card that I'd like to replace it with, cloning my >> > existing setup to the new drive (in a temporary USB enclosure) then >> > installing and shrinking the Windows partition in anticipation of >> the Linux >> > dual-boot install. Can anyone recommend a good tool for doing the >> disk >> > clone? Or am I better off to just fresh-install Windows on the new >> drive, >> > and restore my data from the old one? >> > >> > 2. I want to have one partition for data that is visible regardless >> if I >> > boot Linux or Windows. Previously the most reliable filesystem >> readable by >> > bothwas FAT32. Should I still do that? Is Linux support for NTFS good >> > enough now? Even better, can Windows be taught to read ext4? >> > >> > 3. I've never used snap or flatpack before. Others have told me to >> > install as much native (ie, .deb packages) as possible, use flatpack >> when >> > it's the only option and uninstall snap. Any comments or caveats >> here? And >> > why did app installation sources become needlessly complex? >> >> I have avoided them so far by not using a distribution with such silly >> additions. :) >> >> I think even Mint Linux based on Ubuntu has removed it. >> >> As for cloning and resizing, clonezilla should do the job well. >> >> -- >> Len Sorensen >> --- >> Post to this mailing list [email protected] >> Unsubscribe from this mailing list >> https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk >> >
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