Top backup and imaging tools for a Computer Repair Technician.
Top backup and imaging tools for a Computer Repair Technician.
I've determined the safest method for creating a disk clone to a smaller drive, using Clonezilla/Gparted is the approach:
Create a disk clone via File (directory) using Clonezilla (requires an additional external hard drive). This is important because I have a reliable backup to revert to if the next step fails.
Apply Gparted and adjust the partitions so the overall size is smaller than the target disk. The main advantage here is that the user can choose how much space to reduce per partition. For example, keeping one OS partition and another for data (which you've likely already cleared) probably means you shouldn't reduce the Windows system partition (which might shrink regardless of the software's settings).
Finally, use Clonezilla to copy data from the original HDD to a new one (or SSD).