How to clone an sd card for another card (win32diskimager)

Question

I recently bought an raspberry pi 4, I want to make a copy of my first SDcard(64GB) for my other card(8GB). But it seems that if i make a copy of my 64GB card with win32diskimager it makes the size of the .img file 64GB that is way too big for my 8GB card. Is there a way or another app that lets you copy a sd card and paste it for another card while keeping the size reasonable?

Answer 1

Don't try to use Windows!

Use the SD Card copier on the Pi itself.

I believe there are other options (using various imagers) which work on Windows but all suffer from limitations on SD Card size i.e. they will copy to a larger (or EXACTLY identical) card only.

NOTE 8GB is too small for a current Raspberry Pi OS image. It can be done but only if a minimal installation.

You can make a minimal sized image. I use Backup image of SD Card. This needs to backup to external storage - the link explains.

Answer 2

You could use Windows and Win32DiskImager. I never had issues with WinDisk32Imager so far, so I don't see why one wouldn't be allowed to use Windows to do the copying...

Only, you should also check the tick box "Read Only Allocated Partitions". This way, you won't copy your whole SD card to the second SD card (that will give issues, that's correct), but only the used area on your first SD card.

Chances are highly unlikely that you have used exactly your whole first SD card...

Best,

--Geert

Answer 3

I have used an executable called piKlone and it seems that works for me, But the down side is using it takes much longer but it gets the job done.