Hello,
I am trying to use Knoopix dd to backup a partition to an image file (simulate GHOST.exe to backup my partition). It takes about 2 hours and also exceeds 2GB limit even I use gzip and unix pipe line | . Please see my command as follows :

1) dd if=/dev/hda1 bs=10M | gzip -9 | dd of=/mnt/hda5/drivec.zip bs=10M
{ hda1 is FAT; hda5 is linux ext2 partition }

2) I cannot use mknod (tried to use unix piped line) :
mknod drivec.imp p (it gives an error : Applet NOT found)

Questions : Can anyone help !!!! :
1) How can I improve the method (I used ghost.exe under DOS - it takes only 10min) ?
2) How can I solve the problem for mknod ?
3) /mnt/hda1 is 5GB, but the system occupies 3.5GB ony - how can I use dd or other commands to skip unused data to speed up the backup process ?

Regards,
Bruce