Create an image of HD using (dd), resize NTFS with qparted

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CypherBit · #16 Post by **CypherBit** » Mon 06 Feb 2006, 06:42

Thank you for trying to clear this up Flash.
I know there are quite a few commercial programs that can easily do this. The problem is I'm about to do this on a wider scale and don't really want to buy any software. Came across dd and thought this would easily do the job.

Does anyone use anything else (F/OSS) for this same purpose?

#17 Post by **Flash** » Mon 06 Feb 2006, 07:01

Surely you can find one or two sacrificial computers to try it out on, to see if it will do what you want.

CypherBit · #18 Post by **CypherBit** » Mon 06 Feb 2006, 07:05

I'd rather not.
But if no one comes up with a confirmation/another solution I'll just have to try. Hopefully I'm not the first one that wants to do this.

CypherBit · #19 Post by **CypherBit** » Mon 06 Feb 2006, 21:19

Well I tried it. It seemed to be a complete success, but when I attempted to boot from the new HDD I recived the dreaded "NTLDR is missing".
I then disconnected the drive and booted with the old one. Not only do I get the above error but it displays that only 2.8GB is free, same as the old drive and the partition of this one was 5GB larger. Which it totally ignores.

In short dd doesn't seem to be what I'm after at all. Please provide me with an alternative.

GuestToo · #20 Post by **GuestToo** » Tue 07 Feb 2006, 04:52

dd can duplicate a partition, byte for byte
the new partition will be an exact duplicate of the old partition ... same size, same everything

if you want to move the files from a smaller partition to a larger partition, you have to do it on a file-by-file basis, from within the file system ... if it is an NTFS system, then the file system was invented by Microsoft ... only they and partner businesses that pay them for the rights know how the NTFS system works ... there has been some limited reverse-engineering that has been done, to try and figure out exactly how it works, but it's not easy to do ... see here

so to do what you want to do requires using programs that have been written by people who have paid Microsoft to tell them how NTFS works ... in other words, there are probably no open-source programs that can do what you want to do

Ghost can do this ... probably Partition-Magic ... i think http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ has a good reputuation

GuestToo · #21 Post by **GuestToo** » Tue 07 Feb 2006, 04:57

you can resize an NTFS partition, though
parted can do this, i think

CypherBit · #22 Post by **CypherBit** » Tue 07 Feb 2006, 06:55

I know I could use a number of commercial applications for this, I've done so in the past. But I don't want to this time around. I'm quite sure they're not needed.

Especially if one looks at http://www.partimage.org/, just wish I could use this in Puppy...or something else.

GuestToo · #23 Post by **GuestToo** » Tue 07 Feb 2006, 08:05

there is a parted package on my dotpups page (untested by me)

in any case, as far as i know, the static partimage binary works in Puppy
http://www.partimage.org/download.en.html

i haven't made it into a dotpup package because it's a little too big (over 1 meg) to upload to the forum

i think that to do what you want it to do, a program requires knowledge of how the NTFS file system works ... and Microsoft will not tell anyone the exact details without being paid and agreeing to a license that forbids the source from being published (which is by definition, not open-source)

CypherBit · #24 Post by **CypherBit** » Tue 07 Feb 2006, 11:08

Thank you GuestToo. I'll give SystemRescueCd a try to see if Partimage does what I want it to and report back my findings.

CypherBit · #25 Post by **CypherBit** » Tue 07 Feb 2006, 23:26

SystemRescueCd/Partimage was not up to the job.

I once again tried dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/sda1 bs=32256 on a different PC and once it completed I was able to boot in the Windows OS without any problems (no missing NTLDR or anything).
Naturally the partition showing up was the same size as the one from the old HDD so I defraged the drive, booted up Knoppix ran qtparted (which unlike parted can resize NTFS) and resized the partition to the size I wanted. Basically making it show how it should have in the first place.

Everything works great! I'll try it on other machines now.
BTW I searched and searched but didn't find qtparted for Puppy are there any plans for it?

CypherBit · #26 Post by **CypherBit** » Wed 08 Feb 2006, 20:09

I tested this again today using a different PC.
Everything went smoothly but was unable to boot into Windows. Used a boot disk (on another PC since my main box lacks a FDD), fixed the MBR and was able to boot it up afterwards (on both PCs). Qparted did its thing again and I'm writting this from the clone.

Just wanted to post my findings, awesome stuff.

#27 Post by **Flash** » Wed 08 Feb 2006, 22:49

How did you get qparted to work in Knoppix? I got frustrated and disgusted with having to get past the requirement for a "locked" password or use su or some such on my own damn computer.

#28 Post by MU » Wed 08 Feb 2006, 22:53

In knoppix you can run
sudo program
to start a program as root.

I often run
sudo konqueror
Like this konqui runs as root, and I can click on programs in /usr/bin to run them as root.
Mark

#29 Post by **Flash** » Wed 08 Feb 2006, 23:07

Thanks, Mark.

What's the point of having to use "sudo" to run a program in Knoppix? Is it just a frustrating (for a beginner) but unavoidable side effect of not running as root? It can't be intended to prevent you from screwing up your own computer.

CypherBit · #30 Post by **CypherBit** » Thu 09 Feb 2006, 15:18

Well it's supposed to be a security measure. Ubuntu and other distros are quite fond of it.

But I actually didn't run it as sudo. Don't know if it's related to the version of Knoppix I'm using (4.0.2) or something else.
I just know that qparted (ntfsresize) did a great, great job.

I'm currently DDing (using Puppy) another PC and will probably have to resort to Knoppix once again.
I think qparted does all that cfdisk can do and more, hopefully I'm not the only one that would like this to be added. Don't really know how much more space it would consume.

jmarsden · #31 Post by **jmarsden** » Wed 15 Feb 2006, 08:05

CypherBit wrote:Does anyone use anything else (F/OSS) for this same purpose?

Check out g4u at http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/ if you need to do this on any serious scale using FOSS. Allows copying disk and partition images across the network, etc.

Note that copying a smaller drive image to a big drive will not (in my experience) destroy anything, it just wastes space on the bigger drive. You can recover the drive using any fdisk utility to re-write its MBR and partition table. This applies to physical hard drives, I have no experience playing these sorts of games with flash drives.

I highly recommend that you do plenty of "playing" with a couple of spare hard drives before using this stuff on precious "must be saved at all costs" data!

Final comment: Do not use g4l, it is a ripoff of older g4u code, and should be avoided.

Jonathan

CypherBit · #32 Post by **CypherBit** » Wed 15 Feb 2006, 12:03

Thank you for your suggestion jmarsden. I'm aware of both g4u and g4l (and the story behind them). The scale won't be so big and using FTP is almost out of the question, I usually hook up one HDD using an USB/IDE adapter and just copy over.

The above has worked quite well on half a dozen machines the only thing is I'm still using two CDs for the job.

#33 Post by **Flash** » Wed 15 Feb 2006, 16:58

Here's the Qparted home page. There's another partitioning program for Linux called Gparted. One or the other may run in Puppy if you have the right version of Qt installed. If one does, you could either remaster Puppy to include it, or try a multisession Puppy.

Ted Dog · #34 Post by **Ted Dog** » Wed 15 Feb 2006, 17:43

CypherBit wrote:Thank you GuestToo. I'll give SystemRescueCd a try to see if Partimage does what I want it to and report back my findings.

Yeah, the newer version does not work like the last version. I was able to resize and growisofs backup directly from SystemRescueCD (or DVD multisession also works in the last version) I would reboot after resizing let windows 'cleanup' , then boot puppy and backup drive to DVD.

drewmeister · #35 Post by **drewmeister** » Mon 14 Aug 2006, 17:48

Ted Dog, last Christmas you started this with a list of dd command lines to back up various parts of hard drives to <image>.raw. The next day you posted excellent advice on how to back up /root to CD/DVD-RW that wouldbe in the drive if you booted a multi-session DVD.

growisofs -M /dev/dvd -D -J -R -quiet -new-dir-mode 0755 -graft-points `date "+%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M"`=/root

And how to remake a RW DVD with your own default setting (two cmd lines)

growisofs -Z /dev/dvd -D -J -R -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table /livecd/

growisofs -M /dev/dvd -D -J -R -quiet -new-dir-mode 0755 -graft-points `date "+%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M"`=/root

My problem is that I use Puppy 2.0.1 multi-session, not RW but DVD-R. I have become scared that I don't have a backup of that DVD. Once, ok maybe two or three times, I have put the boot DVD back in the drive upside down (pretty easy to do when the computer is turned on it's side/edge to save space) and Puppy's save said to put a blank DVD in the drive. Then Pup proceeds to save on the new dvd NOT.

So I am looking for dd and/or growisofs commands to write a new dvd (equivilent of writing e.g. puppy-seamonkey-2.02.iso to a new, blank dvd) and then writing /root as the first saved session.

Note: The Puppy I have been using no longer correctly writes an iso file to disc. Don't know what that's about, maybe I should try upgrading to 2.0.2, but I can't as long as this problem exists, and it would be great to make a new disc using growisofs or dd even.

Can ya hep me, Ted Dog?

Still living in New Orleans, if you call this living ...

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Create an image of HD using (dd), resize NTFS with qparted

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