Disk Cloning?

[eon]

Hi, I have tried three open source disk cloning programs but they didn't work .
I have a disk that s.m.a.r.t says is failing. Partlogic-.0.53 & g4u do not load/boot
Does anyone have any experiance with software that can clone a drive-not just stuff
that claims to. Or am I better off using, yuck, propriatary software?
BTW I'm not running windows and the drive that's failing has 7 different partitions on it.
Thanks.

[ghaze]

Knoppix contains everything you need to clone a disk.
If you'd describe exactly what you're trying to do, someone
will probably tell you how to accomplish it.
Some programs you might want to research:
dd and nc
partimage

I've used both of these methods, but you'll need to rtfm. If you want
point-and-click, you'll probably need to spend some $.

Possibly, the programs you tried didn't "load/boot" because
you neglected to read the manual. Did you write the images properly,
or did you just copy them to a floppy/cd?

At google:
clone.disk knoppix

http://www.rajeevnet.com/hacks_hints/os_clone/os_cloning.html

http://www.partimage.org/

You'll find that point-and-click windows-like apps usually cost $$,
while open source projects would just like you to read their docs.
It's your choice.

Have Fun

[OErjan]

dd will work , but it wil sadly also copy the errors over with it.
personally i would make a full "image" of the drive, then mount that and copy from there to a hdd partition, being certain i mount READ ONLY, why? so i have a "good" image to do any "rescue" from.

[eon]

Knoppix contains everything you need to clone a disk.
If you'd describe exactly what you're trying to do, someone
will probably tell you how to accomplish it.
Some programs you might want to research:
dd and nc
partimage

I've used both of these methods, but you'll need to rtfm. If you want
point-and-click, you'll probably need to spend some $.

Possibly, the programs you tried didn't "load/boot" because
you neglected to read the manual. Did you write the images properly,
or did you just copy them to a floppy/cd?

At google:
clone.disk knoppix




http://www.rajeevnet.com/hacks_hints/os_clone/os_cloning.html

http://www.partimage.org/

You'll find that point-and-click windows-like apps usually cost $$,
while open source projects would just like you to read their docs.
It's your choice.

Have Fun

Yes I did rtfm! and I know how to write iso images to cd and how to use dd or cat to write to floppy.
I also have used dd to copy partitions but I've found it doesn't work so well if the new partition has a different partition number. My post probably sounded terse because I had spent the better part of the day trying to get one of the cloning programs I mentioned to work only to discover that it's buggy, and that's borne out by the reviews of it at freshmeat, which I didn't read fully until after I had problems.

So what I want to do Is clone this entire drive with all the partitions intact i.e usable and bootable.
I have debian woody, knoppix, slackware, mepis, and kanotix on the drive I want to clone, and i want to
copy them all keeping permissions and ability to boot. I can use mkcdrec but it is alot of work and I'll have to
do each partiton indivually-maybe that's the way I'll end up with because I know that program and it does work.
As OErjan said sometimes dd seems to work until you try to access the data.

[OErjan]

what os are you cloning?
i hasve used cp to make fully working clones of my linux installs to new disks.
i just parttion it with same number of parttions and then use cp -ax to move everything over (one partiton at a time)
i then chroot into the install that was "hosting" the bootloader and reinstall that from there. not very complicated and works in most cases.

[eon]

Thax OErjan, I'm cloning linux-all the distros I mentioned above. I already have a grub set up on my 1st disk and it's pretty easy to edit menu.1st. The problem or concern I have is if I try to move all the different distros they obviously won't be in the same partition order that they are now. (I already have one install on the 1st disk-there's plenty of room on the disk-but I don't know if the bootloaders will work right. i.e in installing these system I installed the loader (lilo or grub) to the partition instead of the MBR so in my lead distro I can just use rootnoverify and chainload from there.

In my experiance when I've moved a partition the boot fails it might start but something goes wrong. Sorry for the long reply but that's my best explanation of where I'm at. And thanks again for the cp -ax command-argument. Perhaps I would be better off trying to install to a same size hard drive which means buying another drive. (?)

[OErjan]

just edit lilo.conf and grub.1st on those to point to the right partition if you are woried.
to be honest i would not, as long as you point first grub right it should be OK to boot any linux distribution without any aditional loader/s.
works for me, and yes i have done it multiple times.
last week was latest, after a disk crash i moved my / on the server to a new disk, worked great (and still does).

and to resure you i have done it to disks with up to 6 (six) OS; win 98, Slackware, Debian, redhat, mandrake and suse. With win i used a start diskette and did a SYS C: to get booting, I then chrooted into the linux withch "hosted" the loader and reinstalled it, yes ALL the linuxes shared same bootloader.