copying windows (ntfs) partitions with dd

Hi,

Does anyone know of any helpful web pages out there that talk about
copying Windows (NTFS file systems) to other hard drives (on a PC
architecture)? I cannot use GHOST because the company that acquired and
ruins good software products does not provide drivers for my hardware.

I've used dd to duplicate bootable OS images placed on multiple
partitions. This has been successful when copying (block by block) the
source disk to a target disk. In this case the disks had identical
drive geometries.

I want to learn how to copy a working Windows NTFS partition into a
file (i,e, saved on an ext2 filesystem as a single file), then restore
that file to another disk with different geometry. (and then boot it)

To boot this target disk, I will eventually use Grub but for now have
been tinkering with ntldr. To get ntldr to boot the newly copied NTFS
partition I assume that I must copy the first 446 bytes of the MBR from
the source disk *and* I must copy the NTFS partition into the exact
same numbered primary partition such as the one it was created.

Does the bootloader that Windows lays down in the first 446 bytes of
the MBR working with labels such as /dev/sda or actually using drive
geometry parameters to address the specified partition? If it uses raw
drive geometry then perhaps that explains why I cannot accomplish this
between disk drives that do not have identical drive geometries (in
which case a copy from "/dev/sda" to "/dev/sdb" does the job
perfectly).

Eventually, I want the flexibility to copy the ntfs partition into any
partition on the target, then boot with Grub's chainloader mechanism.

I need some accurate references to solve this. Anybody know the
details about this stuff or know of some links that address the
specifics of copying an NTFS partition to *any* partition (on the
target drive) and then getting it to boot the newly copied Windows.
(yes, I know about the SID and the required changes for the file
system's files. I working on booting at this point. )

Cheers!
D

Boot Knoppix off CD and run "dd" from there.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation

http://www.storagecraft.com

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

Does anyone know of any helpful web pages out there that talk about
copying Windows (NTFS file systems) to other hard drives (on a PC
architecture)? I cannot use GHOST because the company that acquired and
ruins good software products does not provide drivers for my hardware.

I've used dd to duplicate bootable OS images placed on multiple
partitions. This has been successful when copying (block by block) the
source disk to a target disk. In this case the disks had identical
drive geometries.

I want to learn how to copy a working Windows NTFS partition into a
file (i,e, saved on an ext2 filesystem as a single file), then restore
that file to another disk with different geometry. (and then boot it)

To boot this target disk, I will eventually use Grub but for now have
been tinkering with ntldr. To get ntldr to boot the newly copied NTFS
partition I assume that I must copy the first 446 bytes of the MBR from
the source disk *and* I must copy the NTFS partition into the exact
same numbered primary partition such as the one it was created.

Does the bootloader that Windows lays down in the first 446 bytes of
the MBR working with labels such as /dev/sda or actually using drive
geometry parameters to address the specified partition? If it uses raw
drive geometry then perhaps that explains why I cannot accomplish this
between disk drives that do not have identical drive geometries (in
which case a copy from "/dev/sda" to "/dev/sdb" does the job
perfectly).

Eventually, I want the flexibility to copy the ntfs partition into any
partition on the target, then boot with Grub's chainloader mechanism.

I need some accurate references to solve this. Anybody know the
details about this stuff or know of some links that address the
specifics of copying an NTFS partition to *any* partition (on the
target drive) and then getting it to boot the newly copied Windows.
(yes, I know about the SID and the required changes for the file
system's files. I working on booting at this point. )

Cheers!
D

So that's it, eh? Use dd from the Knoppix distribution, instead of,
say, Gentoo, and my problems will be solved. Had I known it was that
easy I would not have posted.

;-)

Am I wrong that Gentoo requires install? Knoppix does not, it just boots
off CD.

--
Maxim Shatskih, Windows DDK MVP
StorageCraft Corporation

http://www.storagecraft.com

wrote in message
oups.com...
So that's it, eh? Use dd from the Knoppix distribution, instead of,
say, Gentoo, and my problems will be solved. Had I known it was that
easy I would not have posted.

;-)

What difference does it make? ;-)

If you want to learn about Gentoo, then post your question to the
Gentoo forums...

Your follow-up was not useful toward addressing the issue I raised. Is
that clear now?

Cheers,
D

wrote:
What difference does it make? ;-)

If you want to learn about Gentoo, then post your question to the
Gentoo forums...

Your follow-up was not useful toward addressing the issue I raised. Is
that clear now?

Quite. I doubt that anyone else will be bothering you with much in the
way of responses, useful or not.

- bill