Solved cloning a win 8.1 pro x64 hard drive install so it boots

sdowney717

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I am posting my steps so I can recall how I did this today.
Went from 500 gb install to a 250 gb install
First I tried using window's built in resizer but it refused me.

1. So download minitool partition wizard to resize to 100 gb
MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition - Free download and software reviews - CNET Download.com
Since drive was in use, it had to reboot to finish and it is very fast nice program.

2. I then used clonezilla live usb to copy the partition to the smaller drive, it filled in the remaining space expanding it, but did not set flag to boot. So when I try to boot drive, just got flashing cursor.

3. So I used gparted in ubuntu live usb to set flag to boot on the drive.

Now it booted but had error saying drive was locked, pc had to be repaired, so searching found this youtube and following that it now works and is still activated. Had to get to a windows command prompt, the video shows how.

4. I had the win 8.1 pro DVD I burned in the drive. Dont know if it was needed. But it booted that, and I selected repair my pc, (small text ) vs do an entire new install.

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyBrjDpsXGc

2 commands needed were
bootrec /fixboot
bcdboot c:\Windows /l en-us /s c: /f ALL

I did not make the partition b: which he makes, it worked just using c:

Also I dont know if minitool can clone a partition and was wondering if linux DD command would have worked the similar as clonezilla. does.
dd command, I have used before and it worked copying a linux install. But I still had to modify the uuid.
SUDO dd if=/dev/sda of=/output device (target) bs=16384K conv=noerror,notrunc

So now I have a duplicate bootable drive, and I can mess that up, upgrade to 10 etc... and still have a bootable backup.
The PC that this is running on has only 1 sata drive possible, only 1 sata power plug, so I had to put these 2 drives in a separate PC, otherwise would have been simpler.

Is there an easier way?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1 pro
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