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I am upgrading to a Raspberry Pi B+. These are my concerns:

  • I have RASPBIAN via NOOBS on a full sized 16GB SD card.
  • How do I get that onto a 64GB Micro SD card?
  • raspi-config does NOT support expanding a partition if you installed via NOOBS so I cannot just DD the card to another and later expand via raspi-config.

Some of my thoughts on how to solve the problem.

  1. DD is out isn't it as NOOBS doesn't support partition resizing via raspi-config. Is there another way to expand?
  2. Can I make a tar backup and restore that? Do I have to reinstall Rasbian fresh and extract the tar onto itself? If I do restore it that way, how do I ensure things I removed from Raspbian also get removed and I don't just dump a load of stuff onto?
  3. Is there any way to mount the new MicroSD card onto my original Pi via USB adapter and then clone form itself onto the mounted MicroSD via adapter? rpi-clone is out thought as that also does not support NOOBS (Man I hate I used NOOBS, I thought it was just the new supported method - not the 'locked on your same card forever' method)
  4. Can I get RASPBIAN running on my new B+ on its MicroSD (no NOOBS this time!) and then network it with my original B model with SD and somehow RSYNC from the B to the B+? How do I ensure this will remain bootable and anyone have any experience with the right commands for this?

I really REALLY would appreciate some help with this. I haven't seen a solution anywhere and spent the entire day yesterday googling and searching these forums.

Please also note: I have access to Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/Mac desktops if they are of use.

My current plan....

  1. Flash a fresh RASPBIAN onto the micro-SD card so that it is partitioned correctly and has FAT drive etc
  2. Insert via USB SD reader the micro-SD into running Pi
  3. Format the RASPBIAN partition on the micro-SD blank leaving just the FAT partition
  4. DD from my noobs RASPBIAN partition on my original SD to the micro-SD via adapter
  5. Put the micro-sd into new B+ and hope for the best
  6. If it does boot hopefully use raspi-config to expand the partition (as it will now no longer be NOOBS)

Should this work? Will it boot?

Remember this is going from a NOOBS-Raspbian to a Regular-Raspbian... can that even be done?!

I don't see anyone ever accomplishing this ever before...

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    You cant move noobs raspbian to regular raspbian, you cant actually do that with any OS. It will just create a mess, possibly boot up but keep crashing and going nuts. Just 'DD' the 16GB card you have to the 64GB one and follow my instructions below. It will boot up fine after this. Good luck and welcome to the Raspbery Pi network. Please vote for good answers.
    – Piotr Kula
    Jul 18, 2014 at 13:19
  • I agree with your comment about NOOBS. It is not easier, and is just a waste of 2GB. I would do a fresh install of Raspbian and copy over your /home/pi directory. Admittedly you will need to reinstall any programs. PS I agree with ppumpkin comment about gparted. PPS It is not straightforward, but I see no reason why you couldn't copy most of the system directories (apart from /etc/fstab). I would use rsynch to do the copy.
    – Milliways
    Jul 18, 2014 at 13:54

3 Answers 3

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I just successfully moved from a 6GB NOOBS install to 64GB card. My install didn't have a Swap partition. This meant the other answers here didn't provide me with the information I needed.

The steps I followed:

  1. Copied the 6GB card to the 64GB card by following this guide. A brief summary is included below:

    • Inserted the 6GB card into my mac.
    • Created a disc image of this card.
    • Inserted the 64GB card into my mac.
    • Copied the disc image onto the 64GB card.

  2. Ran GParted Live from USB on a Windows machine.

  3. Followed this guide for editing the partitions with GParted.

I've included the main points from the guide to editing the partitions with GParted below:

Note: I didn't run into errors when using. Be sure that you've unmounted the partitions before trying this.

Select partition labeled SETTINGS – Right Click- Resize/Move, At Resize/Move – Drag the Bar from Left to Right – Click Resize/Move.

Select extended File System (Cyan Color) – Click Resize/Move, At Resize/Move – Expand the Bar From Left to Right – Click Resize/Move.

Select partition labeled root – Right Click – Resize/Move, At Resize/Move – Expand the Bar From Left to Right – Click Resize/Move.

Select parition labeled SETTINGS – Right Click – Resize/Move, At Resize/Move – Expand the Bar from Right to Left – Click Resize/Move.

Click Apply All Operations at taskbar to Apply the changes.

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    Missing details on "how you copied the card" as a new person could think just copying files will work. That likely won't. NOOBS has a backup utility in it that can copy to another card. Was this what you used or did you use something else linux native via term? Otherwise it was easy to follow along.
    – Dan V
    Jun 8, 2016 at 4:50
  • Updated to include some details on how the card was copied.
    – Davie Brown
    Dec 6, 2016 at 10:28
  • I would appreciate an answer on how to do this via command line.
    – bomben
    May 24, 2019 at 14:48
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I moved from an 8GB card to 16GB.

  1. sdformatter, format new card
  2. win32diskimager read old card, write new card
  3. gparted(iso) moving swap to max right(not left as written above), and maximize the root partition.
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If you have access to an Ubuntu or other Linux desktop I would suggest using gparted but you can also download a gparted live disk - Burn it and boot from it.

After you have copied the 16GB to the 64GB SD card, boot up or start gparted and once its ready insert your 64GB SD card The images demonstrate resize small to 8GB max before the auto resize was available - The process is the same

enter image description here

  1. The FIRST STEP is to move the swap partition to the end of the card.
    1. Select the SWAP and click resize/move.
    2. You should be able to visually drag the partition to the far left.(make sure NOT to resize it by any mistake)
    3. Accept
  2. Click on the system partition and then again do a resize/move option.
    1. This time you will drag the right edge of the partition, to resize it, all the way to the far right side.
    2. Accept
  3. Click apply
    1. Let it do its magic ...

So once that is done put the SD card in the PI and boot it up!

gparted is a really great tool for resizing and managing partitions.

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  • Wow! I REALLY appreciate that. I will be sure to give it a go this afternoon and report back to let you know how I got along. I heard that NOOBS used a bizarre partition system but you think this should work then? Many many thanks.
    – mrmrw
    Jul 18, 2014 at 13:41
  • My original plan was to install a fresh regular Raspbian, leave its fat drive alone, re-format blank its raspbian partition, DD over my original raspbian partition, update fstab on the now copied over raspbian partition (so it mounts new partition numbers instead), boot it, and use raspi-congig to expand the file system. Benefits of that method (if it even works) is I get off of NOOBS. But your method is much simpler. Do you think the method I suggest in this comment would even work though to try and leave NOOBS?
    – mrmrw
    Jul 18, 2014 at 13:51
  • Try this first. NOOBS is differnt in the way how it foramts its self and does some wierd stuff. But end of day, the ext4 partition is the same, just resize it. Don't mess with the FAT partition since that contains the boot sectors and boot info. As long as the FAT is copied sector to sector it will be OK, the other partitions don't matter since they get mounted by whatever mounts them (i forgot the name)
    – Piotr Kula
    Jul 18, 2014 at 14:18
  • dpkg --get-selections will list what packages are currently installed. You can then apt-get install the same list on the new setup.
    – rob
    Jul 21, 2014 at 9:38

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