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How-To Software Technical

Using DD for disk cloning

Using one of the built in commands in Linux I decided to clone a drive. Unlike in Windows this does not require the use or purchase of a tool or software.

The command dd is used to make a block-level copy of the hard drive. The command can be used to clone one drive to another or to make a full disk image of a drive for later use. Using the following command: ‘dd if=/dev/sdf of=/tmp/disk.img’

This will clone the disk sdf to a disk image file named disk.img
You can also use the following: ‘dd if=/dev/sdf of=/tmp/disk.img bs=16384 conv=notrunc,noerror’

Syntax Reference:

if= the Input file, read the source drive
of= the output file or file to write to
bs= blocksize to set. In the above I set this to 16384 because the larger blocksize transfer faster than the default
conv= conversion converts the file according to the arguments applied, where notrunc means do not truncate the file, and noerror means do not stop on any read errors

I hope this simple breakdown helps you.

 

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