Backup & Restore - Again

[Bob M]

Ok, I know there are other threads on various ways to back-up your system but all seem to have a “fishook” or two so I thought I’d put forward a specific case which I need to attend to.

The OS is Mint 18 Cinnamon.

I need to copy this existing system to a new HDD.

The existing drive is working fine but GsmartControl reports the following.

“Error 971 occurred at disk power-on lifetime: 64852 hours (2702 days + 4 hours)
When the command that caused the error occurred, the device was active or idle.”

I guess at 64852 hours one can expect the odd error so it’s time for replacement before total collapse.

Now my understanding is that most Cloning Software requires the Target Disk to be the same size as the original. In my case the old disk is only 250Gb and the smallest disk I can buy new is 1Tb.

I have “Timeshift” back-ups but my understanding is they are restore points, as opposed to clones, so aren’t suitable for what I want.

In short I want to copy my existing HDD to a new HDD of different size without having to reinstall everything including Shortcut’s and Desktop.

So what is the correct protocol for such an exercise before I wind up screwing up the original drive?

[lsemmens]

Your existing disk is likely to last quite a bit longer, some of my older one's have been running near constantly for 10 years. I've no experience with cloning disks so take this as offered. Clonezilla will clone to a disk of different size, but, only if the target is larger than the source.

Personally, I'd just start over and install Linux on the new disk and then copy over whatever data you need. (Clean Slate and all that.)

[trapperjohn]

Consider rsync for a comprehensive system backup (to a partition on the new drive). You will have to install a bootloader as well.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rs ... up_utility