From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 10 22:37:42 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0FA3C106566C for ; Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:37:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from modulok@gmail.com) Received: from mail-yx0-f182.google.com (mail-yx0-f182.google.com [209.85.213.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C24738FC08 for ; Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:37:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: by yxm34 with SMTP id 34so190099yxm.13 for ; Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:37:41 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date :message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=aNjuaQWmFQf69IsV7Ygc2js9nWYlQlpMGEKKDbU2pKk=; b=RU5XV0AaCbM16yRaAfc8FkZxaCrAqbTrMKaFC5q7OyAB/e1eOHQAf4jngHSE1kBOlT 5FM4pFr4H1HZZZ/cEbqen0kGb/fX7GHSuChh6FUUQK3R6IgKK8pS/jH+F5VZauOUHt0N 77xqZaMFG+hcAA1gj6KbJMiLnFgB3qO7wAxvo= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; b=tNAaUVTskXvScA9Y2hLcEvnh4veGjY5DjFvFKvg46m8Rw9mm6ZmHPhxskhwwh2Ml6d 6dX+iuPsf+3VjxCVYlg4xt5pc9zU+KZm96pSqJo/ypXCWXN1EmiK1tUSofplBtpoXrvm K5kcx/8c1OaBagJFKFRjBXO6iZJxvHuX+59c8= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.100.15.34 with SMTP id 34mr2351950ano.165.1307743707499; Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:08:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.100.174.2 with HTTP; Fri, 10 Jun 2011 15:08:27 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20110610191145.GA36779@skytracker.ca> References: <20110610191145.GA36779@skytracker.ca> Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:08:27 -0600 Message-ID: From: Modulok To: David Banning Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: copying hard drives X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:37:42 -0000 >> I would like a way to take peoples windows -or- unix systems and >> store each on portable hard drive as a single file - so that in the >> end I have a large, say 2TB drive with a number of peoples operating >> system backed up - that can later be restored. Use dd to make a sector-for-sector level copy into a file. It will work regardless of the operating system you're copying. However, be aware that some operating systems do not have a hardware abstraction layer. As such their kernels are optumised to run on the hardware they were installed on. They can can only be restored to the exact same hardware. This is usually the case with WindowsXP. (Though you can still mount and extract data from the dd generated image.) dd if=/dev/ad6 of=foo.bin bs=1m >> It would be nice to have the operating system on a stick - so I >> could boot into the program from a clients computer, connect a large >> drive, and backup their entire drive. You can do this with any 'live' operating system. Most UNIX like systems offer a comparable 'dd' command. For example, you could boot to an Ubuntu CD, or even Freesbie, if that's still around. >> which I know dd can do - but I wonder if there is a way to do this so that >> clone drive can be smaller that the original. For this on FreeBSD, use dump(8) and restore(8) commands. Of course, they will only be suitable for FreeBSD, as they are file system (UFS) dependent. -Modulok-