[Gllug] dd'ing a nearly empty disk to a SMALLER disk - is it possible?

[general_email at technicalbloke.com]

On 02/11/10 18:06, Malcolm Blackmore wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-11-01 at 08:58 +0000, Richard Jones wrote:
>    
>> It's a bit unclear to me why you need to do this.  Is the 500GB disk
>> failing?
>>      
> No, it - the 500gb - is in my wife's fujitsu sibling, one of the 4
> computers of the same type with XP preinstalled for 50 quid (which I
> thought a bargain) and with upgraded ram still doing good useable
> service being 2.8ghz P4s.
>
> The disk that failed was my daughters fujitsu original disk, and as I
> said no repair CDs with proprietary drivers and licence number were
> supplied with the job lot.
>
>    


Hi Malcolm,

If windows cam preinstalled and you've got 3 more of those hard drives 
still then why don't you swap one of those in?

Assuming you can't do that: If your Windows partition is smaller than 
320Gb just dd your MBR and windows partition (assuming that's the first 
one) to a fresh 320GB disk and see if GParted can shrink it succesfully. 
If so then nuke the (now invalid) partition record for your linux 
partition and do a fresh install.

Also, if you're cloning your wifes windows install make sure you change 
the product key on the clone back to the key on the COA sticker (the one 
on the case of your daughters machine) before you connect it to the net 
as otherwise you'll have a WGA nightmare on one or both of them. It's 
possible WGA might trip anyway but as long as you have the right product 
key it should activate fine...

To change the product key in XP...

1) Make random change to 
Hkey_local_machine\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current 
Version\WPAEvents\OOBETimer

2) Run %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a

3) Choose 'Yes, I want to telephone a customer service representative to 
activate Windows'

4) Choose 'Change Product key'

Good luck!

Roger.
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