create an image like norton ghost in ubuntu

[Ray Parrish]

H.S. wrote:
> habtool wrote:
>   
>> On Tue, 2009-01-13 at 15:17 -0800, Ray Parrish wrote:
>>     
>>> mierda tuti wrote:
>>>       
>>>> HI,
>>>>
>>>> I have kubuntu 8.10 and I would like to create an image like norton 
>>>> ghost do it in windows.
>>>>
>>>> Many thanks and sorry for my english,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> You already have the dd command on your system, and it makes bit by
>>> bit 
>>> copies of drives, which are exact images of the source drive. For 
>>> instructions on it's usage see this link -
>>>
>>> <http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=149328>
>>>
>>> Later, Ray Parrish
>>>       
>> I have had good results from partimage
>>
>> http://www.partimage.org/Partimage-FAQ
>> Partimage vs others
>> [edit] What does partimage give you over the following: clear the free
>> blocks with DD, and copy with DD
>> dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/filetmp
>> rm /mnt/filetmp 
>> dd if=/dev/xxx
>> gzip > image_file.gz
>>      1. Partimage is faster. You don't have to wait for "dd
>>         if=/dev/zero" first. during the copy, free blocks are not read.
>>         Then, if 20 % of the partition is used, partimage will avoid two
>>         access to 80 % of the free areas. 
>>      2. There's a GUI (graphical user interface). It has a lot of
>>         advantages: you can see the remaining time, the percentage of
>>         the copy, ... The Qt GUI in the next version will be very nice
>>         and easy to use. 
>>      3. Partimage can work on file systems which are not supported
>>         (stable write support) by the Linux kernel, such as NTFS, BSD
>>         ffs, XFS/JFS in a non-patched kernel. To run "dd if=/dev/zero",
>>         you need the write support in Linux. 
>>      4. Partimage is made to be easy to use, and to replace commercial
>>         software such as Ghost, Drive Image, ... and the user does not
>>         have to know many command lines. 
>>      5. Partimage has a lot of options, such as -V which allow th create
>>         a new volume if space is missing. DD will show and error and
>>         abort. 
>>      6. The network support allows to save an image file from a client,
>>         without having to configure both client and server NFS. (Network
>>         File System). When the multicast will be implemented, it will
>>         allow to restore X clients from 1 server, and DD can't do a such
>>         multicast copy. 
>>      7. We provide rootdisk and bootcd. You can boot on it, if Linux is
>>         not installed on your computer. They contains everything that is
>>         need (the LZO compression in 0.7, which is very useful for big
>>         files). You don't have all these tools on every boot rescue
>>         systems.
>>
>>
>>     
>
> I second that. I have used it in the past to retain images of 'factory
> default' hard disks. This was a couple of years or so ago. I am sure
> there have been improvements in these open source disk imaging tools
> since them. Somebody mentioned fog, it appears it uses partimage
> internally. However, it doesn't appears to be in Ubuntu repos yet, at
> least not in Hardy.
>
>
>   
Here's one drawback that dd doesn't suffer from, this is a quote from 
the partimage web site -

> *The NTFS (Windows NT File System) is currently not fully supported:* 
> this means you will be able to save an NTFS partition if system files 
> are not very fragmented, and if system files are not compressed. In 
> this case, you will be able to save the partition into an image file, 
> and you will be able to restore it after. If there is a problem when 
> saving, an error message will be shown and you won't be able to 
> continue. If you have successfully saved an NTFS NTFS partition, you 
> shouldn't have problems as you restore it (except in the case of 
> bugs). Then the best way is to try to save a partition to know if it 
> is possible. If not, try to defragment it with diskeeper or another 
> tool, and try to saving the partition again. 

Worth noting if you are a Windows user as well. Not a total deal killer, 
but a potential annoyance.

Later, Ray parrish

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