Hello,

Is there any disk imaging software for Linux that supports one important feature: the ability to mount the image files created (read-only) to extract individual files later?

I have a collection of disks I need to image, but I may also need to restore individual files from those images at a later time. I need to be able to maintain the entire partition's contents, including boot blocks and so on, such so the partition can be restored to the exact state it is at time of imaging save for unused clusters.

Using dd is silly because it'll dump even unused sectors (Which might contain data) and just be a hassle. Partimage creates images that ignore unused clusters but its images can't be mounted. Same for ntfsclone - the mode in which images are stored only with the occupied sectors creates an unmountable image.

Any solutions at all available (obviously preferably under the GNU) that run in Linux and allow this type of behavior?

I'd imagine the ntfsclone or the partimage guys could write FUSE drivers to make the images mountable read-only - I just hope they do soon, because both are great tools. However, is there any solution available now?

Lad, what I'd recommend is dd. You can blank the unused blocks by creating a 0bytefile also using dd.

dd should copy your disk block by block to the point where you can view the inodes and superblocks using hexdump if that's what you are refering to.

You can use losetup to create a filesystem with a single file then copy from one disk to the other. Afterward you can mount the file. Use gzip to compress the dump file for storing.