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Short Version:

How can you clone a smaller flash drive (8Gb) to a larger flash drive (16Gb) without losing the empty space on the drive?

More Details:

I have a 8Gb flash drive with files on it that are not transferred by copying to another flash drive. I am trying to make a 16Gb an exact copy of the 8Gb drive, but with more space on it. I have already attempted to copy, as well as have a friend clone it for me, but the clone did not allow the extra space to be used.

Is there a way for my 8Gb flash drive to be cloned (an almost exact copy) to the 16Gb flash drive, but allowing me to use the empty space on the 16Gb drive, on the same partition?

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  • use something like dd or clonezilla then extend the partition
    – Ramhound
    Feb 18, 2014 at 18:58
  • How are you currently cloning? What kind of file system is in use? Different imaging tools can handle this automation, though @spuder's answer provides a pretty general case solution.
    – ernie
    Feb 18, 2014 at 19:45

1 Answer 1

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The easiest way to move a smaller partition to a larger drive, is to clone the drive as you have already done, then open the drive in a partition management utility and resize the partition to use the full 16 GB.

If you are using windows, Disk Manager can do this
If you are running Mac, Disk Utility can do this
If you are running Linux, use GParted

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