Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD

coliver

You could use dd to take a block level image of the drive. Or just use clonezilla.

DustinB3403

@coliver I've never used dd.

Clonezilla I have used, I'll give that a shot.

scottalanmiller

DD is the standard tool.

DustinB3403

@scottalanmiller Is there an newb's guide to dd?

coliver

Yep,

man dd

scottalanmiller

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=32M

Where sda is the source, and sbd is the target.

coliver

@coliver said in Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD:

Yep,

man dd

Really you would do something like:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb.

There is a way to do it with a progress bar I just don't remember it off the top of my head. Nor is it very useful other then to see some indication.

coliver

Just make sure you are absolutely sure which drive is which. dd is similar to a honey badger when it comes to your data.

scottalanmiller

And you know how a honey badger is with data.

stacksofplates

@coliver said in Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD:

@coliver said in Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD:
Yep,
man dd
Really you would do something like:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb. 
There is a way to do it with a progress bar I just don't remember it off the top of my head. Nor is it very useful other then to see some indication.

Ya to get the progress you have to pipe into pv. It's a weird syntax.

dd if=/dev/sda | pv | dd of=/dev/sdb

coliver

@johnhooks said in Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD:

@coliver said in Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD:
@coliver said in Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD:
Yep,
man dd
Really you would do something like:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb. 
There is a way to do it with a progress bar I just don't remember it off the top of my head. Nor is it very useful other then to see some indication.
Ya to get the progress you have to pipe into pv. It's a weird syntax.
dd if=/dev/sda | pv | dd of=/dev/sdb

Thanks, I knew it wasn't difficult just not something I do everyday.

coliver

@scottalanmiller said in Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD:

And you know how a honey badger is with data.

Not the one I was looking for but it is much more polite.

stacksofplates

Looks like you can do this also

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb &

then

pv /path/to/file.iso | md5sum

and it prints out the progress

20MiB 0:00:00 [ 268MiB/s] [=====================================================================================================================================================================>] 100%            
8f4e33f3dc3e414ff94e5fb6905cba8c  -

travisdh1

Clonezilla is just dd for those to lazy to figure out the exact command(s) needed to run. Also, I use it all the time.

DustinB3403

Does DD gracefully handle larger to smaller disks?

brianlittlejohn

@DustinB3403 From what I've read (haven't tried) you have to resize the partitions on the source then clone each partition over individually.

DustinB3403

That blows.

scottalanmiller

@DustinB3403 said in Linux help me clone dynamic windows disk to clean SSD:

Does DD gracefully handle larger to smaller disks?

No, it's JUST the block copy mechanism.

DustinB3403

I might just buy a 960GB SSD.... it's under $200... and return this unit.