On Tue, 2006-02-14 at 12:36, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > > I need to make an identical bit-for-bit transfer of a hard disk from a > > *REALLY* slow box to a faster box. > > > > 1- There are no security issues --plugging one box directly into the other. > > 2- I need to prove/document the copy is identical to the original. > > 3- I want to do it as efficiently as possible. > > 4- I "own" both boxes. > > --- > > Has anyone used dcfldd ?? Is this a better tool than dd ?? > > http://dcfldd.sourceforge.net/ > > --- > > Any time-tested commands/flags/scripts would be greatly appreciated. > > > > Best wishes to everyone, > > > > Andrew > > > If you are going from one box to another, then dd type tools are > not the right tool for the job. You may want to take a look at > Ghost 4 Linux ( http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/ ) This also > has the advantage that the drives are not mounted during the > copy, so you do not have to worry about something changing while > the drive is being copied. You do NOT want to do a bit-for-bit > copy of a mounted drive! You can use dd even across machines if you can boot a run-from-CD distro that has ssh like knoppix. Set a root password and start the ssh server on the remote box and use a command like: dd if=/dev/hda |ssh remote_ip dd of=/dev/hda However, to use dd the disks must be the same size. If this completes without errors, the disks will be bit-for-bit identical. You will have to change a few bits, though. One change will be to delete and re-add the ethernet interface(s) or edit and remove the HWADDR= entries from /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth* file(s). Otherwise the interface(s) will be ignored because the MAC address won't match the new box. You may also have a problem if the new box needs a disk driver that isn't compiled in the kernel or included as a module in the initrd image. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
