I bought a laptop with windows 11 instaled in its 256gb nmve ssd. I want to install linux but I want to first create an image of the ssd and store it in an external 4tb ssd with a ext4 filesystem (that I use for different backups) so in case I want to sell the laptop later I can restore windows 11 to the same ssd from the image. So what i’m planning to do is:

  • dd if=/dev/drive_device of=external_ssd/images/windows11.img

for creating the image and swapping if and of for restoring. My question is if creating the image of a drive with a windows 11 filesystem and storing it in a ext4 filesystem is possible or can have any issue. I ask this because I read that in the case of cloning the target drive will end up with the filesystem of the source drive in case they are different, which caused me some hesitation.

  • bambooEnglish
    2·
    15 hours ago

    As others have said, using dd will be a bit for bit copy of the drive, regardless of the filesystem. If you were only using 10GB, and the rest of the drive was “empty”, the output of dd will still be a 256GB file. You could compress this file with gzip if storage is a concern.

    With regard to your plan with Windows, there is a hardware check that OS will perform and if the hardware drifts too much, the OS will not be activated anymore and will need a new license. I’m not familiar with recent versions of Windows, but if you have a Pro version of the OS, it might not work on new hardware.

    • corvus@lemmy.mlOP
      2·
      13 hours ago

      The idea is to restore Windows to the same laptop in case I want to sell it, so it shouldn’t have any issues, right?

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        10 hours ago

        You can just reinstall base Windows at that time, either plain or your OEM version if they provide it. There’s not much use in preserving the current image.

        • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
          1·
          9 hours ago

          there are. for one because of the license key, but also because it’s not rare that its hard to find all the drivers that make all of the laptop work

          • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
            3·
            9 hours ago

            OEM license keys have been stored in the BIOS for several versions now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_Locked_Pre-installation

            For 99% of drivers, the on-disc ones are enough to get up and running, and as long as you have an Internet connection you can download any that aren’t on-disc. The remaining 1% can be obtained directly from the OEM. Modem Windows is very good about this.

            • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.orgEnglish
              1·
              7 hours ago

              For 99% of drivers, the on-disc ones

              op will wipe the disk

              as long as you have an Internet connection you can download any that aren’t on-disc

              if windows update can guess correctly what kind of device you have

              The remaining 1% can be obtained directly from the OEM

              I did not have that experience last time with an acer laptop

      • bambooEnglish
        3·
        13 hours ago

        Ah I see ok yeah that should be fine. I misread and thought you were going to sell the windows laptop and transfer the OS to a new machine.