bootable backups / dd and Windows cloning

[E K]

Hi all,

Me think that cloning a hard disk using dd with 
    dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

will produce the exact image of /dev/hda on /dev/hdb so that the disk on /dev/hdb can effectively replace the disk on /dev/hda with no effect. However, when I tried to clone a Windows XP machine this way, the cloned disk is not bootable saying that there is disk error. I can still read the cloned disk once the machine boots from another disk (Windows or Linux) and a partition manager will report the same partition image as the first one (i.e. number of partitions, partition sizes, types and flags). I find this frustratingly surprising. Can anyone shade light on this?

Thanks,
Equbay Kiflay (EK)



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