newbie: Partition Image reliable for NTFS?

**rcook** · 09-10-2004, 04:18 PM

The approach by Firebyrd10 is recommended by the forensic analyis people. Storage on a fat32 is problematic, because of file size restrictions. I have used the dd | gzip >file.gz sucessfully to image a NTFS partition onto a linux partition, but have experienced grief when trying to move, split transfer the resulting file to a windows partition: fat or ntfs.

**krikke** · 09-10-2004, 05:38 PM

Trying to understand this, so I'd get it to work next time. You're not using partimage, but the dd command. Why? Can that manage boot drives?
Does firebyrd10 agree that you'd better have a linux partition for the backup file, instead of FAT32/NTFS?

**firebyrd10** · 09-10-2004, 08:39 PM

Originally Posted by krikke

Trying to understand this, so I'd get it to work next time. You're not using partimage, but the dd command. Why? Can that manage boot drives?
Does firebyrd10 agree that you'd better have a linux partition for the backup file, instead of FAT32/NTFS?

Well, no. dd is a program made for copying file and such. It can't manage boot drives, but if your doing what I think your doing, then qtparted should be able to do the managing part.

I agree that, it would be better to use a partition that can handle large files. But if you must use FAT, then split the files into 1-2 gig parts.

Code:

dd if=/dev/hda(or other drive) | gzip -(1 through 8) -c | split -b 100000000 (I think you can add meg, and gig to the end of this so you don't have to speify the number of bytes, i'll look into it) - /mnt/hdb1/mypc_hda.img.

But be sure to put them back together when you want to use the image or else you'll get problems. (There is a way to do that with cat but I don't know it yet.)