Need to create image, dd wont work...

chuckycharms · 02-16-2010, 07:40 PM

Hello,

I have a flash card with a linux install on it. I would like to create an image of the drive. However when using dd it works, but the image is the same size as the card, 8gb, the data on the drive is maybe 800mb. I just want to image the data. Would anyone have any reccomendations?

Thanks!

HasC · 02-16-2010, 07:46 PM

then mount the card and dd/tar the data

pljvaldez · 02-16-2010, 07:46 PM

Try using Clonezilla, Parted Magic, or G4L.

chuckycharms · 02-16-2010, 07:53 PM

thanks!

if I dd/tar the data, it wont keep the bootable partitions thought will it?

jefro · 02-16-2010, 09:59 PM

Flash drives tend to have many issues with making it bootable. Normally one simply uses syslinux. Even if you dd or tar'd or cat'd over files you can always go back and syslinux it.

Or grub4dos or whatever.

See pendrivelinux.com also if you want to make more flash drives.

It might be that you will have to use other tools such as HP's tools to make a flash drive bootable.

bloodyscript · 02-17-2010, 01:13 AM

ther is also this that may help possibly http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

mpier · 02-17-2010, 04:24 AM

Dd is probably the simplest way. Only remember to overwrite free space with zeros (cat /dev/zero >zerofile; sync, rm zerofile) for simplify compression. Then you can use dd with gzip, bzip, or whatever you want: dd if=device | gzip >device.img.gz. The result will be so small as possible.