Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 17:36:46 -0500 From: Andrew <andrew.chace@gmail.com> To: "Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC" <chad@shire.net> Cc: FreeBSD Questions Mailing List <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: "dd" question Message-ID: <1146695806.3352.14.camel@LatitudeFC5.network> In-Reply-To: <E573EA60-5542-475C-A112-A7360575CC89@shire.net> References: <E573EA60-5542-475C-A112-A7360575CC89@shire.net>
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On Wed, 2006-05-03 at 14:11 -0600, Chad Leigh -- Shire.Net LLC wrote: > I have a Windows machine that also has some linux partitions. lilo > is the main boot manager. Can I used dd from my freebsd box to > completely copy the whole disk, partition tables and all, to another > disk? The disk in the machine is starting to appear to be a little > flaky and I have another of the same mechanisms here and would like > to just basically clone the whole thing over. I seldom use the > machine but when I do need it I need it (tax time, an old website > that uses a specific windows tool for updating, etc) > > Thanks > Chad I've done this several times, and it works reasonably well. Someone recommended piping the output through netcat, which will work; however I have another suggestion. If you think the disk will be ok, use dd to "zero-out" the rest of the drive; i.e. dd if=/dev/zero of=zeros; rm zeros; dd if=/dev/ad0 of=- | gzip - - | nc $HOSTNAME $PORT; I've always used FTP instead of netcat, but you should be just fine. netcat may even be a bit faster, since you don't have the overhead of the FTP protocol. On the receiving end, just do the reverse: nc -l $PORT | gzip -d - - | dd if=- of=/dev/ad0; You can play around with blocksize too; sometimes it will speed up the process a little bit. One of these days, I am going to write a tool to do just this sort of thing, since it seems to be a fairly common practice. -Andrew
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