Norton Ghost for linux? Partition software needed.
 

Hi,
I am looking for suggestions of programs that allow me, in linux, to move & copy HDD partitions and whole hdd's like Norton Ghost does.

For those that dont know: Ghost (win32) grabs a partition or disk and can either make a compressed file of it or can clone it on another hdd.

My version of ghost only reconizes fat32 and <older> linux partitions.
Need something that munches both linux and fat32 pref.


thanks

You could try a newer version of Ghost (I have a copy that does recognize Linux Partitions) or try Linux Backup Utils...

From the Simple Tar (or Tar and Gziped) to programs Like 'Mondo Rescue' <- I still haven't gotten this to work though =( (I'm missing dependancies)

It's all in the box, though a bit more complicated and not so sophisticated.

For a one-to-one copy or image of a disk of partition, use dd (or cp) on your device files. It has a some disadvantages:

• The source and target disk/partition need to have the same size.
• No intelligence inside. It copies everything, also the unused tracks.
• You'll probably need fdisk (the linux one) to adjust the system-id.

To compress images, use bzip2. Very powerful and suitable for this type of files.

For linux file systems, if you just want to copy the files, use cp -d -r -p. This command also copies ownerships and permissions.

If you want resize-able partitions, you should take a look at LVM and reiserfs. I'm using it for a couple of years and it works very well for me. I split up my large hard disks in a number of partitions and add them to a volume group as separate physical volumes. This gives me some flexibility: in LVM, it's one big pool of disk space but I can still assign a part of my disk to another OS.

Another option is to buy an up-to-date version of Norton Ghost or PowerQuest PartitionMagic. More recent versions support more recent file systems.

Hope it helps.