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Copying a drive without imaging software?
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:43 pm
by RobertPaul
So I've got a drive that's on its last leg ... I have a new disk ready to roll but I don't really want to shell out for Norton Ghost just to mirror the drive. I can't do it while Windows is running, since it's picky about not copying files/directories that are in use. I can't boot to a prompt since ... well, WinXP can't boot to a prompt. I can't boot to a Linux live CD since Linux can't write to NTFS.
Any suggestions? =\
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:45 pm
by feyd
Don't have the XP disc?
What about
Bootdisk.com?
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:50 pm
by RobertPaul
I do indeed have an XP disc (legit, too!) but from what I understand, the Recovery Console (the closing thing to a prompt) is severely limited.
Bootdisk.com looks like it might have what I need ... I'll have to poke around.
Re: Copying a drive without imaging software?
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 9:51 pm
by Roja
RobertPaul wrote:So I've got a drive that's on its last leg ... I have a new disk ready to roll but I don't really want to shell out for Norton Ghost just to mirror the drive. I can't do it while Windows is running, since it's picky about not copying files/directories that are in use. I can't boot to a prompt since ... well, WinXP can't boot to a prompt. I can't boot to a Linux live CD since Linux can't write to NTFS.
Any suggestions? =\
Actually, Knoppix has an NTFS write driver now. Its experimental, but it works. That and dd, and you are all set.

Re: Copying a drive without imaging software?
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:29 pm
by RobertPaul
Roja wrote:Actually, Knoppix has an NTFS write driver now. Its experimental, but it works. That and dd, and you are all set.

What does
dd do that
cp doesn't (besides being much more complicated, judging by the man page)?
Re: Copying a drive without imaging software?
Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2006 10:56 pm
by Roja
RobertPaul wrote:Roja wrote:Actually, Knoppix has an NTFS write driver now. Its experimental, but it works. That and dd, and you are all set.

What does
dd do that
cp doesn't (besides being much more complicated, judging by the man page)?
cp copies, dd does binary imaging.
The difference is substantial. CP is for files, dd is for whole disk imaging. Its like comparing xcopy with norton Ghost - totally different.
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:40 am
by RobertPaul
So just to clarify, since I don't fully understand the implications of dd... my brain is fried.
I've got a 40GB drive that's my main boot drive, and a 200GB drive that I want to be may main drive because the 40GB is about to fail. If I just dd if=/dev/hda5 of=/dev/hdb2 (where hda5 is the 40GB and hb2 is the 200GB) will I be able to boot* from from the 200GB? Will it affect the formatting/partitioning of the 200GB?
*Once I switch it over to Master, obviously!
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 4:30 am
by Benjamin
I recall windows has a volume shadowcopy system you may be able to use. That is what the standard windows backup system uses. You might want to look into that.
DO NOT write to an ntfs drive from linux. Even the developers who wrote the drivers for linux will tell you that. It is experimental and you may end up with corrupt files that you might not detect for months, and by then the original hd will probably be in the trash.
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 7:57 am
by Gambler
will I be able to boot* from from the 200GB?
Yes.
Will it affect the formatting/partitioning of the 200GB?
Yes. I would recomment to use balnk unpartitioned drive.
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:29 am
by Roja
agtlewis wrote:DO NOT write to an ntfs drive from linux. Even the developers who wrote the drivers for linux will tell you that. It is experimental and you may end up with corrupt files that you might not detect for months, and by then the original hd will probably be in the trash.
They tell you the opposite:
Are there any utilities on the knoppix disk to conveniently manage partitions , which points to:
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntf ... ml#example , which is titled "How to resize NTFS without data loss?"
In fact, their comment is: "Choosing a distribution including ntfsresize version 1.11.2 or later is highly recommended because
they are able to resize all type of fragmented NTFS safely, there isn't need for defragmentation in advance at all."
I've done so dozens of times in the last year, to no negative impact.
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 9:20 am
by Chris Corbyn
I'm sure the last time I compiled my kernel I stumbled across NTFS Write Support in there... They've been hacking to get this working for a good few years now.
Yeah... to image your drive just use `dd' from a linux boot disk... it will copy the boot sector too if that is on that partition and not the start of the disk itself. In fact, with dd you could copy *only* the boot sector if you really wanted to... this is done for allowing windows bootloader to boot linux but that's beside the point
Even if you copy the boot sector along with the partition you'll need to use fdisk to set the partition you copy it to as bootable though
If it really is about to completely pack in (as you might have noticed my recent post in this forum yesterday since my drive packed in) then I'd image it asap, start using a new drive and keep the old drive as a spare for non-critical stuff.
Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 2:38 pm
by timvw
dd also copies symlinks, fifo-files, ... (don't know how relevant that is on a windows filesystem though)
and offcourse, it's cool to write your own bootloader and copy it to the first 512 bytes of your harddisk

Posted: Sat Feb 11, 2006 8:49 pm
by RobertPaul
Well ... I'm set now. I think. Perhaps I'll chronicle my adventure when I have a chance to write it up.
Thanks for the help, everyone.