Disk Cloning

[Warren Block]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009, RW wrote:

> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:08:43 -0600 (MDT)
> Warren Block <wblock at wonkity.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 29 Sep 2009, RW wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:22:31 +0200
>>> Polytropon <freebsd at edvax.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> doing 1:1 copies with dd is always possible and will
>>>> keep content identically; remember to copy the MBR separately
>>>> with bs=512 and count=1 from the /dev/ad{source} device.
>>>
>>> Why?
>>
>> Because it contains the partition table.
>
> Right, but why separately, rather than with the rest of the disk?

For me, it would be because dealing with an individual 512-byte 
partition table file is easier than decompressing a multi-gigabyte image 
file to get at the first 512 bytes.

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA