Clone SD Card from a larger size SD Card to a smaller size SD Card January 30, 2017 If you do any work with the Raspberry Pi or other Linux based system that uses SD Cards as the primary storage device, you’ll run across a issue that can be time consuming and troublesome. What you need to do this: A minimum of an 8GB. removable storage disk. This storage can be an SD card or a USB Flash Drive. A computer that is already running Windows. A Windows 7, Vista, or XP installation disk,. Iso file equivalent. Although you only need 8GB, just grab a 32GB or 64GB from Amazon.
I spent time figuring this out due to needing SD cards for my Raspberry Pi, but the instructions apply to pretty much anything on SD. DD on WindowsWindows sadly lacks the utility that’s ubiquitous on Unix/Linux systems. Luckily there is a utility. Get the latest version (release at time of writing is ).
Which diskBefore using DD it’s important to figure out which disk number is allocated to the SD card. This can be seen in Computer Management tool (click on the Start button then Right Click on Computer and select Manage). Go to Storage - Disk Management:Here the SD card is Disk 1. Making the imageFirst start a Windows command line as Administrator (hit the start button, type cmd then right click on the cmd.exe that appears and select Run as Administrator).
Next change directory to wherever you unzipped the DD tool.To copy the SD card to an image file (in this case c:tempmyimage.img) use the following command line: dd if=?DeviceHarddisk1Partition0 of=c:tempmyimage.img bs=1MIn this case we’re using DD with 3 simple arguments:. Input file (if) is the SD card device. Output file (of) is the image file we’re creating. Block size (bs) is 1 megabyteWriting the image back to a clean SD cardThe first step is to ensure that the SD is complete clean. Most cards come preformatted for use with Windows machines, cameras etc. The diskpart tool can be used to remove that.
Go back to your cmd running as administrator (and be very careful if you have multiple disks that you use the right number): diskpart select disk 1 select partition 1 delete exitYou’re now ready to copy the image back to the SD (simply by swapping the earlier input file and output file arguments): dd of=?DeviceHarddisk1Partition0 if=c:tempmyimage.img bs=1M. Top Posts. Recent Posts. Recent CommentsonononBrianS onGeorge on.RT @: 'Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.' - Aldous Huxley.@ Exactly.@ Also I can remember the arguments for tar, but ln -s still evades me.@ Using the cursor keys might be a blaster rather than a light sabre, but that's how I get through each day.RT @: Logging into my bank (Chase) this morning, the background photo caught my eye. It was my neighborhood (eerie!), which cause. Blogroll.