How do you clone a HDD?

A

Andrizzle777

New Member
Hello computer forum, I'm trying to completely back up a computer. I want to retain absolutely everything (not just most of the files) I want to completely capture everything, so I can go back to it at any time if I need to. I've heard of Norton Ghost and from what I understand it takes an .img of your computer. Is that what I want? I want to be able to store this image on an external HDD and if I need to go back to it I'd like to be able to apply that image to the computer at any time. Is this possible? and if so, what is the best way to go about doing it.
 
Andrizzle777 said:
Hello computer forum, I'm trying to completely back up a computer. I want to retain absolutely everything (not just most of the files) I want to completely capture everything, so I can go back to it at any time if I need to. I've heard of Norton Ghost and from what I understand it takes an .img of your computer. Is that what I want? I want to be able to store this image on an external HDD and if I need to go back to it I'd like to be able to apply that image to the computer at any time. Is this possible? and if so, what is the best way to go about doing it.
Click to expand...

Forget about Norton Ghost. You can do better. After ensuring both HDDs are the same size, on a Linux box (don't have one - get one) issue the following command:

dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc bs=100M conv=notrunc

Now: the mount /dev/sdb is the HDD to be cloned, /dev/sdc is the target HDD. I have assumed the OS is not installed on the source HDD, but on a separate HDD with a single partition (besides swap) mounted as /dev/sda. Therefore, you should be careful in editing the names of the devices, if my scenario is not accurate.

Good luck!
 
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