On Fri, 26 Mar 2004 07:37, Paul William wrote: > Hi all, > > Is a simple dd: > dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdx > capable of 'cloning' hdc into hdx? if the two devices are identical, unconditionally, yes. if hdx is smaller than hdc, then effectively no. if hdx is larger than hdc, then yes, and you then have the opportunity to adjust the partitions after copying. imho, it's a better idea to partition the destination disk appropriately and do file copies of each partition using the cp utility in recursive mode. While this method will take longer it has the side benefit that any fragmented files will the made contiguous.
> hdc is nearly dead so I will be > getting a replacement tomorrow and I don't fell like reinstalling > everything. It is a good idea to do this sort of system work in single user mode. dd has an option 'bs' for Block Size. Larger block sizes have a remarkably beneficial effect on data transfer speed. For identical disks one could even go to the size of a disk cylinder. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell NB. This PC runs Linux. If you find a virus apparently from me, it has forged the e-mail headers on someone else's machine. Please do not notify me when this occurs. Thanks.
