I have linux on a machine and that drive is sda. I have a drive I want to clone using DD command, it is sdb. The destination drive (USB external drive) is sdc. Some basic questions:

1. Is it best to have sdb (DD IF) unmounted before using the DD command?

2. Do I need to have sdc (DD OF) unmounted before using the DD command?

3. How do I unmount the drives and how do I see unmounted drives?

4. I want to have the OF in a format on the external drive sdc that I can restore/image/clone to a blank drive. What would that be?

4. Can someone give me the actual command syntaxes I would use to capture the original drive and restore it to a new drive?

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. See man mount, you do not need to see the drives, you can see device nodes in /dev/
4. dd does bit by bit copy, there is no way to choose a "different format"
5. Basic: dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc bs-1M - there are many sources on these forums and on the net about dd usage

1 members found this post helpful.

1, 2. Almost mandatory, if not I'd for one would always have it unmounted. Anytime I do work on some task that has /dev/xyz in the command, I make sure it is not mounted.

4. I think what the OP wants is to copy to a file on some other resource. If so then the OP would use an of= some mount point and file name and that mount point has to be mounted as opposed to making a clone. For example. dd if=/dev/sdb of=/media/usb3/driveimage.img


4(5) would really be to reverse either means you used to create image. Either bit by bit to a device or bit by bit to a file.

There are commands like blkid or lsblk that list them. Or list the /sys/block directory.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ommand-362506/

The most awesome dd tutorial EVAR!
The Disks app will show you all the disks/drives your system can see, mounted or not, and can mount and unmount druves.