what is the easiest way to make an image of a hard drive that has Linux RH 7.2 installed on it???

dd if=/dev/hda5 of=rhimage
Of course, you need enough space for the image and replace /dev/hda5 with the right partition name. For a whole hd it's /dev/hda (first hd).

Thank you. What do I have to do to copy this image to a different hard drive???

It's a good idea to try this trick only with a disk with the same size...
dd if=rhimage of=/dev/hda5
if <--- from
of <--- to

Mara,


I have a situation where I need to get out 20 PCs
with Mandrake 9 on them, however our PCs come in
not necessarily with the same hardware config,


If one uses this command...on reboot, will Mandrake
see those hardware changes and adjust accordingly.


Because if it would this would save us many, many
extra hours from loading from scratch.

Any info or help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Take a look at partimage - it only copies used clusters to the image and so it works better with different sized drives:
http://www.partimage.org

I checked out the site...very kewl! But I did notice that for
this to work correctly, the same hardware are necessary.

"For example, if you buy 50 PCs, with the same hardware, and you want to install the same linux systems on all 50 PCs, you will save a lot of time. Indeed, you just have to install on the first PC and create an image from it. For the 49 others, you can use the image file and Partition Image's restore function."

So if we decided to use this, would Mandrake see the new hardware on reboot and install the proper drivers, etc.?

Thanks for your help

Probably - there are never any assurances but most hardware should be detected. As with a new install you may have to find drivers for devices that are not supported as standard.