Computer cloning question

[tommag]

I have a laptop with windows 7 pro and linux mint, version 19.3(I think it's 19.3) on it. I use windows to scan documents and don't go online with it.
My daughter has a desktop she no longer uses and is going to give it to me after putting a new hard drive in it.
I'm thinking I can clone the hd in my laptop and put that image on the desktop using clonezilla but I've never done anything like that before.
Does this sound like the way to go?
Thanks in advance.
Tom

[flyingmonkey35]

Hello Tom

For a simple answer Shmabey.

In theroy it should work. I foresee two issues

The dual OS. With grub bootloader dose not tend to clone its self nicely.

Windows7. Will freak out with new hardware.

In all honesty. I would go for a fresh copy of linux. On the new box.

And just dump windows alltoghter.

Unless you game on it.

Good luck

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[pcolapaddler]

Ditto the above in Windows reaction.

Windows 7 will likely not immediately recognize all of the hardware - video, network, etc.

You will probably at least have to spend some time looking for and downloading/installing drivers for windows 7 on the 'new' hardware. Then there is the whole Windows OEM license version thing that may require Windows to be reactivated or whatever the term is.

You may also be able to do a bare metal backup of your Windows partition and then restore it to the desktop pc. This may still require the downloading of drivers and reactivation.



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[tommag]

Interesting. I don't like that ms has gone the route of Google in tracking what you do to make me the product. I only use windows for my scanner, so maybe it would be best to look for a scanner printer that works with linux.

[dangitgriff]

I would turn this over to an IT tech and let them mirror your laptop HD to the desktop. All they would need is both hard drives.
R/Griff

[dbosman]

Purchase an SSD for the new to you computer. Most if not all, SSD manufacturers license Acronis True image for cloning the old drive to the new SSD. You'll want a SATA to USB adapter to connect the SSD to your laptop. Download the Acronis software, install it on the laptop and clone the drive. When finished move the SSD to your desktop and cross your fingers that the OS finds what it needs to run. After a couple of reboots and Microsoft updates, and verifying that you have the most current drivers for your hardware, you'll be in business, at significantly faster access times.

[Ford SD]

I have a laptop with windows 7 pro and linux mint, version 19.3(I think it's 19.3) on it. I use windows to scan documents and don't go online with it.
My daughter has a desktop she no longer uses and is going to give it to me after putting a new hard drive in it.
I'm thinking I can clone the hd in my laptop and put that image on the desktop using clonezilla but I've never done anything like that before.
Does this sound like the way to go?
Thanks in advance.
Tom

I have used clonezilla to clone a HD that was going bad ... worked ok

clean up what you can before you do it
crapcleaner
registry cleaner

you might be ok or have problems .... but you can try

[flyingmonkey35]

Your scanner/ printer should work with linux mint out of the box.

Unless it really old.

Most if not all printer company support linux.

Check to see if they have the software you need on thier home page.

Ps what's the make n model of your printer?



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[tommag]

It's an old hp. Not sure of the model, it's out in the storage unit. Probably time to buy a new one.

[Handloader109]

I have a Win 10 computer that is pretty decent, about 5 years old, but i7 processor.
Only a 250GB hard drive. I found a Samsung SSD also 250GB for only $40 as an Office depot closeout.
I downloaded a free version of Macrium Reflect based on a bunch of reviews.
It cloned the drive 100% and I swapped the old drive for the new. Been running perfect for about 6 months now and is way faster than the old HD.

[gnappi]

+1 on Linux Mint changeover. My Win7 and the clone backup drive failed early this year and I went with Linux Mint 20 and never (OK rarely) looked back.

The free Libre Office is as useful in most cases as MS office, Internet browsers are plentiful, graphic software like GIMP are very powerful, Wireless, printing, DVD/CD support are all there for the asking. There's a bit of a learning curve on some of the GUI and apps but in the long run it's well worth the effort to dump MS.

[DougGuy]

Well, with the desktop, and cheap as SSDs are, it's a no brainer to not dual boot them since this just creates issues, use a separate SSD for each OS and forget about cloning an old OS.

As mentioned, win7 will freak out trying to find drivers for new hardware and likely you will have to go online with it to make that happen, so it may or may not work. Also, depending on where GRUB (the linux bootloader) is, that might not copy correctly, it's easy for it to get put in the wrong partition and then nothing will boot, you get this message to go to the recovery console, and you now need a linux savvy tech who can boot off a USB and go find the grub folder and edit the grub config files.

I would strongly suggest mounting an SSD and install Linux Mint 20 on that by itself. I use the Cinnamon desktop edition, it looks a LOT like win7.

Then, pull the cable from that one and mount another separate SSD and run your win7 install. You will need two SSDs for this but they are cheap, MUCH easier to make separate installs than dual boot, much safer, and a WHOLE LOT EASIER to fix if you need to!

If you have a drive bay that you can slide one in and out, you can boot from that and there is your boot manager. Just put whichever one you want to boot from in the bay and turn the power on. If you connect both, you can read the windows partition with linux if you need to move files between them.

Ok let's clear the air. There is a free, cross platform app called Etcher (Balena Etcher maybe) but you download it in a .zip file, extract it and you get an executable image file just dbl click it and it runs, no install to it, you use this to make bootable USB sticks, you will likely need to download the Linux Mint 20 .iso file and within etcher you simply point it at your usb stick, then at the iso, it will do the rest, then shut down and boot off the usb, to run Linux Mint or to install Linux Mint.

Clonezilla is a free disk and partition cloning software, you can find the .iso file and download that, use Etcher to make a bootable USB stick that will run Clonezilla.

Gparted is a free disk partitioning tool and partition editor, you can find the .iso file and download that, use Etcher to make a bootable USB stick that will run Gparted.

If you don't mind paying about $11 for someone's time to organize all this into one bootable tool package, go purchase Parted Magic, use Etcher to create a bootable USB that runs Parted Magic, I like it myself, I keep current bootable USB sticks for Clonezilla, Gparted, and also Parted Magic. You can do all the cloning, partitioning, repair and recovery plus more all from within Parted Magic. Pretty neat tool if you ask my opinion, but since you didn't I'll give it anyway :bigsmyl2:

Now to address your original question tommag, yes you can use Clonezilla and copy over your existing drive, use Etcher like I mentioned above to make a bootable USB stick to run Clonezilla. You can clone it, and just boot it up and SEE what it does. It's a 50/50 chance it might work, odds are ehh mostly against it but you never know until you try and you aren't going to hurt anything by trying. If it doesn't work or it's buggy, scroll up and see my suggestions as to how to configure a new install.

[454PB]

I'm with DougGuy. I've been using Linux Mint for several years, started with 18 and recently upgraded to 20. We have four computers in the house, my wife uses Linux Mint exclusively, I have my desktop and laptop set up dual boot with Linux/Windows 10. I also changed the hard drives on mine to SSD. I can change hard drives on any of these in less than 5 minutes, so don't be scared off by that. Linux has always recognized my printers/scanners automatically, and I buy a new printer whenever I run out of ink, because it's cheaper than buying ink.

[Omega]

Cloning will break Windows 7. The registration is for your current configuration and will require you to re-register it when it notices your configuration has changed. My advise is a clean install of your prefered operating system, Win7 or Linux Mint (I like both), make a backup of your user files and settings, to a CD or external hard drive, then place those files and settings on your new install, it will be much less headache in the long run. I use Norton Ghost, and it does work, but better used to replace a smaller hard drive. If you do clone it the way you want to do it, you will be chasing issues for some time to come.

[WebMonkey]

yes, cloning or moving the hard drive to a new PC will break windows 7.
NOT FOREVER though.

"hiren's boot cd" has a selection called mini XP.

after you've cloned OR MOVED your windows/linux drive to the new pc.

you boot HIREN's and choose mini xp.

then you use the marked tool for 'fixing' the 'hard drive drivers' (i say it like that for clarity not accuracy).

then you reboot your new pc and yes, windows 7 is just fine the way it was on the OLD hardware.
(yes, it'll look for/install new hardware drivers but it will boot and have all your 'old stuff' there)

good luck

(fresh linux on the new pc is a great choice too)
;)

[flyingmonkey35]

What ever you do.

Follow these three rules.

1 back up your data.

2 back up your data.

3 back up your data.


In most cases it is incredible difficult costly and time consuming to retrieve deleted data.



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[tommag]

You guys have convinced me to just install linux on it and get a new scanner printer that plays well with linux. That sounds like the best way to go.

[samari46]

We started using computers on the job over 30 some odd years ago. That was when you had a black background and orange lettering. The generating station spent some really serious money on computers for it's 5 operating units. Then they went to touch screens. Course where we worked out one computer and printer were not connected to anything else. Would have cost too much to run new lines from the station and hook us up. So for years every Sunday night on the 11-7 shift had to print out all the time sheets for the union folks and maintence mechanics. Had two supervisor's out of the 5 we had were completely bumfuzzled with computers. Naturally all the time sheets and time cards went to the office manager. And she was known to raise a fit if they weren't on her desk when she walked in. One of the supervisors was told to put his papers in after a couple incidents on the job and not doing the computer work. Truth is that no one showed him how. When I mentioned sending him to school to at least get the basics down you should have heard the screaming and yelling from his fellow supervisors. We were all management and had no union of any sort to back us up. Then the day of days. They finally hooked us up to the mainframe in the station. Now all the office manager had to do is punch a few keys. I'm not computer literate in fact I'm computer challenged. I was the last supervisor there when I left. Where I ended up they had a whole different system.It took me almost a tear and they gave me tasks to help me out. Three years later I put in my papers as I was burned out. Did 33 years of shift work. Should have stayed in the navy. I was reading what was going on and didn't understand a word. We were buying our own copies of DOS just so we could use the computers,that's how far back we were. Thanks for the memories,I think. Frank

[DougGuy]

You guys have convinced me to just install linux on it and get a new scanner printer that plays well with linux. That sounds like the best way to go.

Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon. It has an irc client already installed and configured to connect to SpotChat server and join the #linuxmint-help channel all you have to do is click the HexChat icon and it takes you there. This is a chat channel that is for linux mint issues, some of the linux mint developers even hang out in there and help sometimes, there is also #linuxmint-chat that you can join and ask questions, it's sort of a help channel too at times. So if you need help with the printer/scanner they will help you, if something breaks or don't work right and you can get to the channel, they will help fix it. I like to lurk in those channels because you learn stuff.

If you ask "What video card do I have?" someone will type in a command that you copy and paste into a terminal, and it will tell you what video card you have, or if you have an issue where something doesn't work or you keep getting an error message at boot, they will type a command and you run it, and it automatically spits out a link to where the command pasted the output, you copy that link and paste it in the channel, then they can go to the link and read the output just like if they were sitting at your kb running the command themselves, pretty neat way of diagnosing stuff.

Linux Mint will find your printer, chances are it won't ask for a driver, it will just install it, but you might have to get help to get the scanner working. *OR* you could wait and install linux mint, then go into the irc channel and ask which multi function printers work good in linux and are easy to configure then buy one of those that is suggested.

[VariableRecall]

In my situation, I had the issue of starting off on an upgraded pre-built computer to move everything onto the new one.

What I had done in this situation, was to simply "decapitate" my old computer's hard drives my dumping all of my important user files and documents onto another drive.

To further add to the guarantees of a seamless transition, I just left my old C-drive around in case I was working and realized I forgot something from the old drive, and just pop it in to find it.

This process continued for over a year until I could confidently say that I got everything off there that I could.

Then again, this happened well before I started to Dual Boot Ubuntu 20, and currently, my C-Drive only has tens of gigabytes left due to the space I had to sacrifice to the as I call it, the Bont.

Honestly I'm quite impressed how many of you are all using Linux. I'm still not entirely comfortable in it, and it's not very compatible with my GPU, but it gets the job done when I need Ubuntu.

[DougGuy]

Honestly I'm quite impressed how many of you are all using Linux. I'm still not entirely comfortable in it, and it's not very compatible with my GPU, but it gets the job done when I need Ubuntu.

Get you another SSD and drop Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon on it. Sometimes a different flavor of linux will often fix problems like GPU or printer issues b/c it is compiled with different drivers.

Also, mint has the driver manager in the system control panel, you can run that and it will display various GPU drivers that can be installed, you may have better performance or compatibility with a different driver.

Cinnamon looks and feels a LOT like Windows 7.

[VariableRecall]

Get you another SSD and drop Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon on it. Sometimes a different flavor of linux will often fix problems like GPU or printer issues b/c it is compiled with different drivers.

Also, mint has the driver manager in the system control panel, you can run that and it will display various GPU drivers that can be installed, you may have better performance or compatibility with a different driver.

Cinnamon looks and feels a LOT like Windows 7.

Some of the weird issues include my speakers making a loud "pop" sound whenever a new audio source starts playing, like it's being unplugged and plugged every time it happens. That's the most annoying of oddities.
I've already downloaded the latest Linux drivers from NVIDIA and I'm forcing them manually.

Either way, it sure beats using a VM to get my Linux needs satisfied.

But, yeah, I could really use another C-Drive SSD with a bit more space on it.

How would Cloning this dual boot setup turn out if I were to have that happen?

[DougGuy]

I wouldn't clone it since you already have it on one drive, use the second SSD for Mint.