Transferring Mint installation from smaller disk to larger, overwriting Windows | Linux Mint Community🍵 | Page 1

sinful jackal May 3, 2025, 4:18 PM

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I've been dual booting between Windows 10 and Linux Mint during the past month or so and I currently have Windows installed on a larger, 4 TB NVME drive whereas Mint is on a smaller, 256 GB NVME drive. I'd like to clone the Mint drive (256 GB) onto the larger 4TB Windows drive, disconnect the 256 GB drive, and erase it after verifying that I can boot to Mint on the 4 TB drive. This seems relatively straightforward to accomplish with Foxclone, but the issue I have is that I'm currently booting from the EFI partition on the larger Windows drive, which is mounted to /boot/efi. Should I somehow change the boot configuration first so I only boot using the 256 GB drive and its EFI partition before doing the cloning so as not to run into any booting issues afterwards?

tough canopy May 3, 2025, 4:22 PM

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that depends where the star is

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open DISKS app in Linux. then select your smaller nvme

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is there even an EFI partition there? and does it have a star?

sinful jackal May 3, 2025, 4:23 PM

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Yeah, no star on the smaller drive, it's on the EFI partition on the larger drive

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And there is an EFI partition on the smaller drive, but no star there

tough canopy May 3, 2025, 4:24 PM

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what you can do is just clone the smaller drive, the later fix with boot repair app from Mint liv ISO

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eg. clone. shutdown.
remove the 256.
power up n boot live usb

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run boot repair, then shutdown

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remove usb. power-up and now the big nvme should boot linux

sinful jackal May 3, 2025, 4:26 PM

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Thanks, that sound very handy and easier than trying to fix things beforehand. I assume the boot repair handles editing /etc/fstab file, etc.?

tough canopy May 3, 2025, 4:26 PM

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yeh

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just stick to order i wrote n it should work

sinful jackal May 3, 2025, 4:27 PM

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thanks, noted

tough canopy May 3, 2025, 4:28 PM

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if foxclone doesnt work, use clonezilla-live iso on a separate (not Mint) usb

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or if u have ventoy, u can keep mint and clonezilla on one usb

sinful jackal May 3, 2025, 4:29 PM

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yeah, I have ventoy, although I do have a separate USB with Mint anyway

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And when I've verified that booting to the 4TB drive works, should I connect the 256 GB drive and boot with Foxclone / Clonezilla to erase it?

tough canopy May 3, 2025, 4:33 PM

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sinful jackal And when I've verified that booting to the 4TB drive works, should I connect the...

u may just use the DISKS app in the new linux to erase other drive (go to its dots menu: format drive)

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then after cleared, hit + button in DISKS to make new filesystem on it

sinful jackal May 3, 2025, 4:33 PM

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Thanks for your help, sounds like a plan!

tough canopy May 3, 2025, 4:34 PM

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or rather, perhaps best use DISKS app from live Mint usb

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just so system doesnt get confused with 2 copies trying to boot a fixed drive

#Transferring Mint installation from smaller disk to larger, overwriting Windows