How to access the dd command in Linux Mint 8

arthurwest · 01-24-2010, 10:53 PM

I would like to use the dd command to make a low level copy of a hard drive. How do you access the dd command in Linux Mint? I am going to install the source and target in the computer, boot up to Linux Mint with a Bootable CD and then copy one drive to the other.

I'd appreciate any help that I can get in this forum.

Thanks,
Arthur

Brains · 01-24-2010, 11:01 PM

When booted into a live session, type: fdisk -l in a terminal as root or sudo to see the device names. If the target is the first drive it will be /dev/sda, /dev/sdb for the second drive. Issue command: dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb conv=notrunc,noerror as root or sudo, wait till the prompt returns. Depending on the amount of ram, size of processor, it could take up to an hour per 10GB to write, so be patient, if the hard drive light is blinking, it's still working.
If only copying a partition and not the entire drive you will need to adjust the command accordingly.

pixellany · 01-24-2010, 11:37 PM

To directly answer the question: Open a terminal. You'll find one in the menus somewhere, or you can enter ctrl-alt-F1 (or F2, F3, etc.)

You'll need sudo with something like dd---or you can activate the root account using "sudo passwd root".

arthurwest · 01-25-2010, 12:52 AM

Thanks for the help and for such quick replies, I'll post as to how it goes.
Arthur