Disk copying util under a Live CD?
in [UK Linux]
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From: Nick Leverton on 18 Nov 2008 10:04 In article <ulh5i4l4dbh8bdokbjdeeortb253jpvntu(a)4ax.com>, T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: >FWIW I just tried Ping and Clonezilla. It looked like Ping only dealt >with (partitions but probably does drives as well but didn't play that >long) Ping copies all ticked partitions - if you tick all partitions you get a clone of the drive :) I've only used it in cloning to/from a system image rather than immediate disk-to-disk cloning, admittedly, but I'd imaging it would be the same. I might look at some of the other suggestions in the thread though to see if their UI is better for less techy people. Nick -- Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 19th September 2008) "The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life" -- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996
From: Unruh on 18 Nov 2008 13:46 Nick Leverton <nick(a)leverton.org> writes: >In article <4f45i4piv5k27hkijeocso2lmmtmc783mr(a)4ax.com>, >T i m <news(a)spaced.me.uk> wrote: >>Hi all, >> >>Is there a (ideally free) util that would work like Ghost to allow me >>to clone one drive onto another from a Live CD of some sort please? >I'm using ping, Partimage Is Not Ghost - http://ping.windowsdream.com/ That is a totally idiotic name for it. There already is a program called ping which does something entirely different. Naming two things with the same name is stupid. >to backup and clone disks. Not the most polished front end but seems >to work well for the small number of configs I've used it in so far. I would not trust anyone who named his program for a well known utility. It indicates shear irrespoinsibility or ignorance, neither of which are conducive to trusting him to write decent software. >I'm not sure how well it copes with LVM mind you, the support forums are >full of homebrew scripts to cater for LVM. I found that to restore a >non-LVM disk onto one which had had LVM, I needed to run the util twice >as it didn't correctly remove the LVM PV's. As far as I could work out >the problem, the first clone overwrote the partition table but appeared >to believe the devices were in use, until I rebooted the live CD when >the second clone restored the data to the now non-LVM target disk ! >Nick >-- >Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 19th September 2008) > "The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life" > -- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996
From: T i m on 18 Nov 2008 15:48 On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:19:35 +0000, Conor <conor_turton(a)hotmail.com> wrote: >T i m wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> Is there a (ideally free) util that would work like Ghost to allow me >> to clone one drive onto another from a Live CD of some sort please? >> >> Or if I would have to install it, something that would run under >> Ubuntu (8.1)? >> >> Cheers, T i m > >Depending on the drive make, some manufacturers offer a bootable CD ISO >that does exactly that. Seagate do for one. Well, it seems <fingers crossed> that it has done the trick. ;-) And very, very simply too (so ideal for me). I'll confirm here that it did actually really work later though. Cheers, T i m
From: Folderol on 18 Nov 2008 18:33 On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:02:38 +0000 chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: > A 'dd' copy of the disk will do a block by block copy of the disk > regardless of any filesystem errors. You can then use the copy on a > working drive to try and recover the data without doing more damage. This may be a silly question, but does dd also copy the MBR? If so could that by itself be used to clone a disk? -- Will J G
From: chris on 19 Nov 2008 05:38
Folderol wrote: > On Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:02:38 +0000 > chris <ithinkiam(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> A 'dd' copy of the disk will do a block by block copy of the disk >> regardless of any filesystem errors. You can then use the copy on a >> working drive to try and recover the data without doing more damage. > > This may be a silly question, but does dd also copy the MBR? If so > could that by itself be used to clone a disk? AFAIK, yes. The downside of dd versus partition cloners is that it copies even 'unused' space. So if you've got a 60gig disk with, say, 30gig used you'll get a 60gig dd copy, but a 30gig clone (less with compression). Plus, using the dd copy requires fiddling with partition tables in order to use it on a new disk, whereas the you can copy the clone onto a pre-existing filesystem. I'm no expert, but AIUI the difference is that the cloners work at the filesystem level and therefore are susceptible to fs errors, whereas dd works at a lower level and will ignore fs errors (it is susceptible to low level errors, though). |