Is it OK to simply dd the 128GB disk to the 32GB disk using count to stop after the 16GB partition was cloned?

I think it would work, but it seems a little overcomplicated, you can just use the partition paths as if and of of dd directly, as long as the output partition is not smaller than the input partition. For example dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=/dev/sdd1 bs=4M status=progress

Your method would also copy the partition table I suppose, which might be something you want under specific circumstances, but then it would be a little harder to get the count right, just taking the size of partition 1 would be wrong, because there is some space before it (where the partition table lives) and dd would start at 0. You’d need to add up the start position and the size of partition 1 instead.

Personally I would prefer making a new partition table on the new eMCC, and create a target partition on it. Then you clone the content of the partition (i.e. the file system). This way the file system UUID will still be the same, and the fstab should still work because these days it usually refers to mounts by filesystem UUID in my experience.

If you make the target partition larger than the source partition, and you intend to use the full partition going forward you will additionally need to resize the filesystem to fit the new larger partition, for example with resize2fs.

Gnome-disk-utility or “disks” in Linux will clone a partition and then restore it to another disk.

I’d use clonezilla

E: It’s not that it can’t be done other ways, it’s just clonezilla will work and has worked for nearly 2 decades. Also there’s no information provided above about the data. So clonezilla is nice if it’s a complicated scenario.

Plus, it’s a nice tool to throw in the toolbox once you know how to use it.

E. Why do you feel like you have to use something like dd for this particular task? Less than 16 GB of data? Ya probably could have copied it over manually by now.

@InFerNo if it’s not a boot drive, you can use gparted to copy the partition over - it’s copy and paste, literally. Then set flags using gparted as well. If it’s a boot drive you’ll need an additional step after to use boot-repair to fix the boot sector and load grub onto it.

It’s really simpler than it sounds, I’ve used it a few times myself. You can also use an #Ubuntu iso to execute this process after booting from it to ensure the 16GB partition is not in use when trying to copy it.

#Linux

INFO: What filesystem does your source drive/partition have?

Could be - just try it ig. And even if not, just create a new partition on the 32 GB disk and then dd it over.

@InFerNo@lemmy.ml you should do the partition not the whole disk. Then create a new partition in the 32gb disk or mount the dd file with a loopback device and transfer the files to the whole 32gb disk