low level copy an USB flash drive / memory stick

mr.v. · 02-26-2007, 02:46 PM

I have a USB flashdrive that I want to make a backup copy of. There's data on it that is separate from the basic filesystem and it controls a piece of lab equipment we have. I was wondering, is there was a way of doing a low-level mirror of the USB drive, sort of like making an ISO of a CD, in case it fails, so that I can copy it to a new flash-drive and not have any downtime waiting for a replacement (or worse...the company fails and I cannot even get a new drive)?

Thanks!

m_yates · 02-26-2007, 04:05 PM

Take a gander at this:

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Dd

under the heading "Creating a hard drive backup image" you will find the commands that should do the trick. You would want to replace "/dev/hda" with the USB drive device. On my Ubuntu machine, it is usually "/dev/sda1" for my flash drive.