The OP title is: "Clone SD Card with Windows 10" (Windows) usage.The 1st post is a 'howto' and that is it basically. It is already half a year old and in the meantime Windows10 is not supported anymore.Part of the questions here are about using Windows.
* cloning an SD card using Windows
* being able to expand/use the FULL data available on the new SD card being used. (instead of being stuck on the original .img size being used to clone from)
"The former takes a pre made image and writes it to a drive"
- kind of confusing, since a 'pre-made' image is just a .img file....correct? (example a 16GB .img from the -original- SD card/OS stuff)
- writing it to a 'drive', ...is? Anywhere? As in an SD card = drive?
This thread has gotten very confusing and misleading with false approaches, and just 'comments' without actual 'steps' provided for beginners
The funny thing is that it is in Board Index 'Using the Raspberry Pi'. But essentially should be under other operating systems (Windows) and/or other software.
Title includes: 'Clone SD card', which means you can also apply it to let's say an SD-card with Home Assistant OS on it.
That touches a key issue: Windows here and the cloning process does just do a bit-exact (sector by sector (512 bytes each)) copy. It does not do anything to the contents, so also does not care about partitions and filesystems inside those. As you might know, HAOS has 8 partitions with some formatted with read-only compressed filesystem (changed recently). Only the last partition (8) is Ext4 and would allow for auto extending, if that is build into HAOS at first boot or maybe as service that is always checking.
About the latter is what is or might be different depending on even what version of RPiOS. I remember I have seen something with a systemd service that can do the trick of auto-expanding, but people who have burned latest image might check it. Or even newer in some other Linux distro, like Ubuntu where also the cloud-init is used for years. I purge all this stuff as I use my own partitions setup for years with usually a swap partition as 3rd and or/other variants of the OS as 4th as backup/recovery and more. Same as HAOS uses A/B methods for example.
So 'beginners' in here should essentially know about manipulating partition tables (MBR and GPT and even Hybrid GPT if RPI3), resizing filesystems as well. Some can only be expanded, like XFS. And Ext4 cannot shrink while mounted. Btrfs can do both when mounted.
Also 'beginners' should know that an exact copy as done here will result in double UUID's (so violating uniqueness). Works OK if never using the original and copy at the same time, but if you don't know, you risk a total mess and corruption. Which can easily happen, for example if you just bought a 2-in-1 adaptor or just a single thing you stick into the RPi. This is all not possible in Windows, unless you sort of turn Windows into Linux (installing VirtualBox and then map HDD/USB-stick to VB blockdevices, done in VMDK files).
If you want more than what OP presents, create a new topic, about Windows software.
So that is the purpose/topic.
Asking for clarification about using Windows for this purpose is -not- off topic by any means. (in the WINDOWS title)
Asking for clarification about the 'lost space' (expanding) can be done via the Windows route as well is still on topic.
Being provided info (that was proven doesnt work or not using Windows) in this topic is mis-leading for beginners/noobies looking for help/clarification.
If asking questions about Windows usage, in a post that has WINDOWS in the title pisses people off,..maybe they shouldnt be answering in the Windows title/topic posts???
Statistics: Posted by xl97 — Wed Jan 14, 2026 2:42 am