imaging a drive to replace it

[Tom Metro]

Tim Callaghan wrote:
> Just to keep it simple (I don't need the extra space even if I buy a  
> larger hard drive) will partimage do the copy operation easily?

Clonezilla (http://www.clonezilla.org/) is probably your best bet if 
you're looking for a friendly tool, and you aren't trying to do anything 
too tricky, like cloning from a larger drive to a smaller drive. You 
download an ISO and burn a bootabe CD for it. It's basically a small 
Linux distribution with some common tools wrapped up in a "friendly" UI. 
(However, it still falls quite short of the mark at being user friendly 
compared to commercial tools I've used years ago, but if you're 
uncomfortable with the command line alternatives, it's an improvement.)


Dan Ritter wrote:
> If you can plug them in at the same time, dd is your friend.

A recent Linux Journal article recommends using dd_rescue[1] instead of 
plain dd when cloning even well functioning drives due to the progress 
reporting provided by dd_rescue. dd_rescue is available in the 
previously mentioned SystemRescueCd[2].

1. http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/
2. http://www.sysresccd.org/

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/