bootable backups / dd and Windows cloning

[John Myshrall]

On 10-06-08 04:18 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> | From: E K<ekg_ab-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org>
>
> | Me think that cloning a hard disk using dd with
> |     dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb
>
> I think that this should work, assuming that the disks are new enough
> that geometry issues don't intrude.  I've done it even when the
> destination is a larger drive.
>
> Are there any bad tracks on the source drive?  A naive raw copy isn't
> going work in that case.
>
> | 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?
>
> Who knows what WinXP does to prevent copying?  Perhaps it checks the drive
> serial number.  Anti-copying code may be coy about diagnostics too.
>
> Can you get it to work for Linux (the topic of this list)?
> --

I've been successful in cloning a Dell Windows XP Professional with all 
sorts of PLC program software licences and the crappy Dell system 
partition.

The destination drive was larger though. Tried it a year later with a 
drive that was the same size and was unsuccessful. It's better to have 
more space to work with.

Try this

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=134457

John


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