How to move Linux on a USB stick to a hard drive partition?

Question

I was running Ubuntu on a USB stick for a while because my hard drive had failed. It had two partitions.

I recently installed a new hard drive and installed Windows on it. I created a new partition inside Windows that is larger than the USB stick.

My question is: how do I move Linux to this partition on the new hard disk so that I have a dual-boot system? I downloaded a program called EaseUS Todo Backup but it can only clone a hard disk onto a hard disk or a partition onto a partition. Ubuntu is installed on the whole USB stick and has two partitions of about equal size.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Solution

Try installing Ubuntu and moving home directory to your new system.

If you need to move it and it's a proper installation (not live version) then use

dd bs=4M if=/dev/partition_on_pendrive of=/dev/partition_on_disk

Then chroot into partition you've created and install grub. Don't forget about swap.

Comments

[Mark Kirby]

You can clone the HDD, which is complicated linux.com/learn/tutorials/… but if you tell we what exactly you want to save from your USB install, mabey we can find a way to do a new install and save the data

[Mark Kirby]

If you want to clone the drive I will simplify it for you, please make another live USB/DVD so you have two (one to clone and a new one to boot) and boot to this, make sure all three devices are connected (two usb and one HDD) open a terminal and run sudo apt-get install ddrescue and when it finishes run lsblk and add all the output of this to the question.

[user1780775]

@markkirby I don't understand. What will that do? I want the Linux install on a partition for dual booting. I don't want to use the whole hard drive.

[Mark Kirby]

You just want a new install in your partitrion ?

[user1780775]

@markkirby Yes but I would rather clone the USB stick. I am a little nervous about trying to install to a new partition as I tried to do that in the past and it ended up inadvertently wiping out Windows even though I selected another partition.

[Mark Kirby]

The page I linked is how to clone your usb, also if you know Ubuntu well przemo's answer is the same thing,

[user1780775]

I'm a little bit confused. You are talking about cloning a partition but the Linux install has two partitions and I don't know how they connect to each other.

[przemo]

Did you install system on pendrive or is it live distribution? If it's a live distro, then there is additional overlay partition and it becomes complicated. In that case I wouldn't recommend cloning, instead I would install new system and copy /etc /home. Use can always check /etc/fstab on pendrive (on running system) and mount overlay partition accordingly)

[user1780775]

I installed a full system. It has two partitions, both around 7gb in size.

[przemo]

Could you run your computer from pendrive and paste the output of mount ?