Clone your hard disk using linux

Posted by ionut
November 13, 2008

Just a simple method to clone your hdd, doesn’t matter if you have also windows on it. I am using OpenSUSE and ddrescue:

I consider:
/dev/sda – old hdd
/dev/sdb – new hdd

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$ sudo zypper install ddrescue  # install the package
$ sudo dd_rescue -v /dev/sda /dev/sdb # "dd_rescue" on OpenSUSE
Linux

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Comments
Comment by Radu on November 14, 2008 @ 8:36 pm

You failed to mention that the /dev/sda and /dev/sdb have to be the same size if not you will have to play with partitions after on /dev/sdb.
Also because this is at block level and not file level even if you use 1GB of a 100GB HDD and you want to copy to a 80GB HDD it will fail ;)
For that you need a copy at file level or use the very smart Partimage ;)

Comment by ionut on November 15, 2008 @ 1:32 pm

Thanks Radu, yes, I forgot to mention that the method has to be used for hdd upgrade, and after that to play with partitions on the new hdd. There are a lot of methods to copy at file level.

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