Cannot copy ext4 partition with Paragon Hard Disk Manager 17

30 Dec 2023

Whenever I try to use the copy disk feature on this ext4 partition which has a basic Ubuntu install on it, I get a message that says. "The file system has unsupported features and cannot be checked." It has the option to continue, and if I do, it scans and finds 0 volume, 0 data etc. then at the end displays this error: "Operation failed: Unknown partition type. (unsupported file system)". Paragon Hard Disk Manager 17 supports ext4, so I'm not sure what's causing this. Any ideas?

Windows 22H2 Build 19045.3803

Samuria · 30 Dec 2023

At a guess it can only copy that on Linux unless it has a sector by sector copy

cereberus · 30 Dec 2023

Samuria said:

At a guess it can only copy that on Linux unless it has a sector by sector copy

This is probably true but I cannot confirm about Paragon.

Macrium Reflect will backup and restore linux partitions~~, but it is a complete sector copy (used and unused sectors) unlike Windows partitions that only need to have used sectors copied by default.~~

~~Maybe there is an option to do a complete sector (sometimes called forensic sector) copy.~~

Edit - This surprised me - I created a Kali Linux VM in Hyper-V with ext4 partitions and base default installation is around 20GB but the Macrium Reflect Image is approx 6GB.

I always thought Macrium Reflect could not compress Linux partitions, but it certainly seems to be able to do so now, so my statement above is not true.

30 Dec 2023

I figured out how to get it working!

cereberus · 30 Dec 2023

22878 said:

I figured out how to get it working!

Why not share your solution so we can all learn?