[lug] Cloning a Windows XP laptop with Linux

[David L. Anselmi]

Jeff Schroeder wrote:
> BOF asked:
> 
> 
>>Is there a way that I can do this with Linux?
> 
> Use the 'dd' command.
> 
[...]
> 
> 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

You'd be better off piping to gzip and making a regular file unless you 
expect to be able to boot the archive directly.  And you may need to pay 
attention to which partitions you're doing:

dd if=/dev/hdb1 | gzip > /mnt/windows.clone # sda mounted on /mnt

You can also look at partimage, which is more efficient than dd.

Dave