Beginners • Re: Clone SD Card with Windows 10

Thanks for the reply....... (just so Im clear, cuz not really a RPi hobby guy)

"Mainly that you will have unused space after writing the image."
- your saying that Im 'limited' to my 16GB image.. being on a new 32Gb card......correct?

"No. You can create an extra partition in the free space or expand the root partition to use it (this is what the RPiOS images do on first boot)."
- sorry not clear to me... your saying it can be fixed....correct? (not sure about the RPi OS comments.. your saying after I boot it up (on the new 32GB SD card.. it will expand the root partition now?) I dont want to create new/extra partitions on the SD card
- I really doubt my project will eat up/use the full 16GB from the original SD card... Im just trying get a better understanding of things to be honest

Like any other drive an SD card needs to be partitioned and formatted before the OS can use it. When you write an image to an SD one of the things it includes is the partition info from the original drive.

That means the running OS has no access at the file system level to the extra space on the SD card. You can expand the filesystem to use that space via sudo raspi-config.

"Not sure what you mean here. Changes made to the original Pi will not be reflected in the copied image file."
- meaning.. (in theory) if my current project (which has LAMP installed on it) builds up the data base to over 16GB.. it will wont work/update.. (as stuck tot he 16GB .img space)

Yes, but see above about expanding the partition.

"7zip will probably compress the image file but it won't change how much it uses when written to an SD card. And, depending on your selected software, you will need to uncompress it before writing."
- ahhh thanks for clarifying!



At my current state of things... what suggestions do you think I attempt?

I made an image of a 16GB SD card
I tested/wrote it to a 32GB SD card
Tested, booted the newly written 32GB SD card in my RPi...
Looked to be working.

The only way to 'expand' any written .img file on an SD card.. is to do -something- through the RPi....correct?

Not the only, but probably the easiest.

Alternative solution/process (not that I have a new/back-up of my original SD card)
* is to make a 'copy' of the current OS/SD card while inserted into the RPi,
* while having a SD card reader plugged into the USB port in the same RPi
* through -some sort of steps- in the RPi OS

To clarify.
I can take my extra RPi (not remove the one embedded in my project)
Insert my new 32GB SD card
Insert a SD card reader into the usb port
Walk through (whatever steps) to create a new 'SD' card/OS
And this will allow full space on whatever SD is used in the SD Card reader/USB port insert?

Yes. The Desktop releases of RPiOS have the SD card copier tool which will does just this.

Statistics: Posted by xl97 — Fri Jan 09, 2026 8:40 pm