Attempting Triple Boot - MAC/W2K/#! - Need DD command help
 

*** NEVERMIND. I'M AN IMPATIENT IDIOT. WORKED LIKE A CHAMP, JUST NO CLUE IT WAS WORKING SINCE THERE WAS NO STATUS % ***

Yes, I'm a newb and have ambitions for a triple boot with MAC/W2K/#! 9.04. I first installed Ubuntu on C600 laptop and then switched to Crunchbang 9.04 since the Dell is lacking any ooomph. Now I'm trying to triple boot an HP Pavilion a330n (AMD Athlon, non-SATA board which has created problems getting Leopard to play nice, but that's another story).

I removed the HD from the C600 (W2K) and replaced it with another running only #!. I installed the W2K laptop drive as master on the HP desktop with a 120GB IDE drive as slave. The 120GB drive has been partitioned for 4: MAC (35GB, ext3), W2K (35GB, NTFS), #! (40GB, ext3) and Linux-Swap (remainder, ext3).

Now to the question: I was planning on using the DD command to "xcopy" the W2K drive to the W2K partition. Sounds simple. I found some helpful instructions on here and was trying to use the following:

dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/dev/sdb3 bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror

TO back up a step, I saw somewhere else suggesting to boot live and run off the CD to facilitate this since I'm manipulating both hard drives. Since I'm working live, I've had some trouble sorting out password issues with root. I managed to change the root password (I know - dangerous, but only for this session anyway).

Each time I try to execute the dd command, I get nada. No activity. The cursor drops below the root@crunchband:~$ prompt and just blinks.

Obviously, I know just enough to be dangerous and would appreciate any guidance. There is no important information to be lost on either drive per se, but have lost the W2K install CD long ago which is why I need to use DD anyway.

Thanks in advance.
Z

Hi,

You should see hdd activity after the command is executed. It will take some time to copy the '35GB' data.

Since you are using a LiveCD, I would suggest that you look at using qparted to copy the partition if it's available. If not on the current LiveCD then get SystemRescueCD which has a lot of tools.

The above link and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!