Image a hard drive

burton · 04-08-2004, 10:00 PM

I am trying to image my Hard Drive using a Knoppix boot CD, I executed the following command

dd if=/dev/hda - /mnt/remote_share/mypc_hda.img.

but it created and 20 GB Image, even though I only had 2 GB of the 20GB hard drive used. Is it possible to crreate an image simillar to ghost or PQDI that only captures the used sectors?

kilgoretrout · 04-08-2004, 10:57 PM

dd will create an image of the entire drive, zero sectors and all. Try using partimage on the knoppix cd; it's included. Here's a short tutorial:

http://www.desktop-linux.net/backups.htm

whansard · 04-08-2004, 11:15 PM

if you put gzip in the loop, the empty space should compress well. especially if you zero it first.
like
dd if=/dev/hda | gzip > filename.dd.gz