Preparing for Linux Install Question: Saving current Hard Drive State
 

Hi All,

I just got a used HP dv5000 sff computer and looking to install a dual boot system. It has one of those, uh, other OSes on it...

I want to take a snapshot of the current HD before tinkering around.

I did some web searches and it looks like I can grab the whole contents and compress it by booting a Knoppix DVD and using dd if=/dev/hda | gzip -9 > <filename> and saving the output to a usb harddrive. What I'd like to know is if anyone else has done this? What I'd do should things do awry would be to restore the drive to it's original state with gzip -d <filename> >/dev/hda. Are there any additional parameters I should use like specifying the blocksize or use gzip -d <filename> | dd of=/dev/hda on restore?

Wanted to run this by the gurus before I get started.

Thanks

call HP tech support to get a set of restore disks
diskmgmt in windows makes a total mess of the
partion table so bad that cfdisk refuese to
even run on the disk

even if you did get a compressed image of the
disk where would you keep it

You can certainly use dd and the Knoppix disk, though obviously you need a backup disk to store the file on it. It is slow. There are a number of other options, like "cloning" the disk with a program like clonezilla. I personally like Acronis TrueImage, which runs under Windows, Linux or with a standalone boot CD recovery disk.