[lug] Cloning a Windows XP laptop with Linux

[Jeff Schroeder]

BOF asked:

> Is there a way that I can do this with Linux?

Use the 'dd' command.

Assuming you've got the Windows drive and the external drive attached to 
your system, and you're running Linux, you should be able to simply do 
a byte-for-byte copy of the Windows drive.

Pretend the Windows drive is /dev/hdb and the external one is /dev/sda.  
It's as simple as

dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/sda

That will copy partition tables and everything else.  Of course the 
external drive will have to be larger than the Windows drive, and you 
probably won't be able to use any extra space on it (since the 
partition table will assume the smaller size).

You'll probably want to look at some of the options for 'dd', like 
blocksize, and adjust accordingly.

HTH,
Jeff
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