Creating clone of a HDD including boot partition

[Mehmet Erol Sanliturk]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 12:57 PM, bsd <bsd at todoo.biz> wrote:


Just to be precise, I am not trying to do an ISO image of a running root FS,
> but of a USB attached disk.
>
> …
>
>

I did not apply the following steps for FreeBSD , but I have applied them in
Mandriva Linux a few times :


Assume that the operating system is broken and it is not possible to repair
it ,
and the data files are not destroyed ( in Mandriva Linux , /home/ is in a
different partition ) .


I am removing power line of broken OS hard disk ( to prevent accidental
overwrite ) .
I am attaching a new hard disk .
I am installing the Mandriva Linux from scratch onto the new hard disk .
I am attaching the power line of previous hard disk .
I am mounting required partition(s)  of  the previous hard disk .
I am using copy from previous hard disk  with recursive parameter on
required directories .

After making a complete copy and verifying that everything is copied
properly ,
I am re-using the previous hard disk for another task ( mostly it remains on
the same computer for a possible new recovery ) .


In that way , it is not necessary to use same size hard disks .

Thank you very much .


Mehmet Erol Sanliturk