I would use Clonezilla, and run a test in a VirtualBox or VMWare vm to make sure that I was comfortable with the general procedure. Clonezilla will also create a command line version of your cloning "session" that you can copy and build into an automation script.
However, I would avoid the Fedora partition. IMO, it would be better to do this from a live-cd / USB, or to set up a separate imaging server that you could SSH into and use to store / push images. I think having Linux partitions mixed with Windows is ultimately asking for problems at some point, when somebody figures out a way to mess it up. If you do decide to configure a dual-boot setup, I using suggest SL6.x, CentOS, or Debian stable over Fedora or other "less mature" release. If the only thing you'll do with it is imaging, you could make a very small Linux partition and install a minimal "server" configuration, and create an imaging script that could be automated. ________________________________ From: Todd And Margo Chester <[email protected]> To: Scientific Linux Users <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 8:20 PM Subject: backup/clone NTFS partition? Hi All, I am designing a new system for a customer. It is a Windows POS (point of sale) system running Windows 2000. I will be upgrading it to XP. It currently has a 20 GB NTFS hard drive. (It is really, really old: Pentium III with ugly IBM white case.) For backup purposes, I need to clone the hard drive. (Other backups as well, but I know how to do those.) The smallest hard drive I can get on the new system is 320 GB. So I was thinking (no smilin') that a second dual boot partition of Fedora would easily fit. That way, when I come in to do maintenance, I can just boot into Fedora and run a clone of the NTFS partition. And date it appropriately. Question: what do you think would be the easiest way to clone the NTFS partition: "dd", "Clonzilla"? Your thoughts appreciated. Many thanks, -T
