Native backup/restore partition options
Tom Metro
blu-5a1Jt6qxUNc at public.gmane.org
Sat Jun 30 12:22:35 EDT 2007
Scott Ehrlich wrote:
> Please remind me the dd option to preserve just the Linux partitions of
> the drive?
Your questions is a little vague as to whether you are trying to
preserve the partition table or a specific partition.
You do the latter by using the partition device name as the source
device for dd. So instead of 'dd if=/dev/hda ...' you do 'dd
if=/dev/hda1 ...' for the first partition.
> I've never played with blocksize, etc.
You shouldn't need to for this, though I typically set the block size to
something large, like 10 to 100 MB, to maximize throughput when cloning
disks.
> Also, what is the best way to know where data ends so I know where to
> start to safely write zeros to the unused area on a partition before
> preserving it?
The best way is to let the file system figure it out. Just create a
regular file:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/partition/zero
Wait until it fails from running out of disk space, and then delete the
file.
-Tom
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Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/
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