[OLUG] dd

[mesc]

I'm really not even sure where the mbr is or how to check it's size.I'm
relativly new to  linux (6 mos.)and I'm just now getting the hang  of
it...well kinda :)

                Gary Martin.

P.S. I do appreciate everyones help.


Adam Lassek wrote:

> I'm not sure how big the mbr is exactly, but couldn't you use dd to back
> it up? And then you could backup the rest with tar.
>
> Dave Burchell wrote:
> >
> > mesc says:
> >
> > > I think when I try dd it tries to copy the whole /dev/hda1(2.0 GB
> > > instead of just it's contents,the win dir(672 MB)I've tried the size
> > > option (ibs&obs)in the dd man page but I must be doing something
> > > wrong.How can I use dd to copy just my win dir on /dev/hda1 not the
> > > whole partition?
> >
> > I'm glad we are talking about this because I need to put this to use
> > right away.
> >
> > I've got an NT machine I want to back up.  I understand that NT is
> > inherently unstable and will someday destroy itself (and even if it
> > wasn't the disk could fail at any time).  I could just reinstall NT
> > 4.0, the service pack, and the server software I need, but I could save
> > valuable time if I have a quick-to-recover backup.
> >
> > Let's say I have installed Linux on another partition of this NT
> > machine and I have set it up for dual booting.  I see two obvious
> > options for doing a backup.
> >
> > 1) Boot Linux and use "dd" on the (unmounted) windows partition.  Copy
> > an image of that partition to the Linux partition or tape drive.  The
> > drawbacks here are that I can't restore individual files and the image
> > of the partition will be the size of the partition, not the size of the
> > amount of space all of the files take up on the disk.  If my 2.0 GB
> > partition is only half full I still need to create a 2.0 GB backup
> > (although this could be brought down with compression).
> >
> > 2) Boot Linux and use "tar" to copy all of the files from the (mounted)
> > windows partition to the Linux partition or a tape drive.
> >
> > But I don't know if (2) will work, because how will I make the Windows
> > partition bootable when I restore it?  Say I install a new, blank HD in
> > the machine and partition it as the old HD was.  Next I install Linux
> > on its partition, boot Linux, and create an MS DOS/Windows filesystem
> > on the partition.  I copy my Windows NT files to the DOS filesystem
> > using "tar".
> >
> > Now how do I make it bootable?  I know how I could do it if I was
> > restoring Linux: I could just run "lilo" after editing lilo.conf to
> > point to the right kernel file.
> >
> > (By the way, if you are going to use "dd" to make a backup of the raw
> > partition, be it a dos/windows filesystem, a Linux filesystem, or any
> > other kind, you most likely want that partition to be unmounted.)
> >
> > >                 Thank you,Gary Martin.
> >
> > --
> > Dave Burchell                                          40.49'N, 96.41'W
> > Free your mind and your software will follow.              402-467-1619
> > http://incolor.inetnebr.com/burchell/                  burchell at acm.org
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Sent by OLUG Mailing list Manager, run by ezmlm.  http://olug.bstc.net/
> > To unsubscribe: `echo unsubsribe | mail olug-unsubscribe at bstc.net`
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sent by OLUG Mailing list Manager, run by ezmlm.  http://olug.bstc.net/
> To unsubscribe: `echo unsubsribe | mail olug-unsubscribe at bstc.net`


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sent by OLUG Mailing list Manager, run by ezmlm.  http://olug.bstc.net/ 
To unsubscribe: `echo unsubsribe | mail olug-unsubscribe at bstc.net`