Using a Linux Live CD to clone XP - Page 6


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Thread: Using a Linux Live CD to clone XP

  1. #76
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    Jun 2004
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    Sabr,

    Welcome to JustLinux.

    This thread has been popular but superseded some what by another thread which is a lot easier and more effective.

    You can raise a thread separately describing your circumstance or just add a post if you think it is related specifically to this thread.

    I try to answer the PM but can't guarantee my response as I have to manage a few of them.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  2. #77
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
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    4
    Hey Just used your method B to upgrade from 160GB to 500GB on XP. Worked flawlessly. I think that the amount of freedom to do what you want in a computer is directly proportional to your operating knowledge, the lower end being a system with a one button mouse . . , middle being Windows-land and the high plateau being Linux and its various distro's. I am impressed with the functionality of Linux, I used Slax and Gparted.

  3. #78
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
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    Newcastle upon Tyne
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    2,978
    raptor310,


    Welcome to JustLinux !


    Yes I have your view too. In Linux we can know what is going on and to me that is real knowledge.

    I believe Linux is a huge collection of small programs doing very simple tasks in the PC and dd typifies how we can put it to good use.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  4. #79
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Posts
    4

    Going Again

    Thanks for the welcome saikee
    Im now passing on my 160GB sata drive to my father who had a 120GB ide drive using the dd function its taking a lot longer . . im in the third hour i think, last time it took 1.5 hours, is this because it has to go from the IDE bus thingy to the Sata bus?. I used the same parameters as before. Ill let you know how it goes.

  5. #80
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
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    4
    Noobish question, it shouldnt matter if i may have accidentally hit enter twice on the dd command line right?

  6. #81
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    dd is a very simple terminal command and doesn't provide any information of its progress. The flickering light of the hard disk is all the indication that it is busy.

    If you use a modern kernel the time it takes and the speed is reported after the operation is completed.

    If you need more than 3 hours to clone a 120GB then your PC may be using USB-1 which is a lot slower than USB-2. dd speed also depends on the CPU. Slower CPU will be slower in the cloning process.

    If you hit the return again after activate dd the key stroke is remembered by BASH and executed on the completion of dd. Thus it will be harmless.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  7. #82
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Posts
    10

    Sweet

    I have to try this

  8. #83
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Posts
    4

    update

    I did manage to clone my dads hard drive, but he didnt want it becuase the hard disk activity light did not work on his motherboard seeing that it was incompatible with sata drives.

  9. #84
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    raptor310,

    In older kernels dd always displays the prompt on completion. This is to say dd accepts the command, executes it and shows nothing if the operation is successful.

    One can get some sense of the progress by issuing a "date" statement before and after the dd command. The first "date" command shows the time before dd is executed but the second "date" command will not produce any display until after the completion of the dd command. Thus if the second "date" output is displayed the difference between the two shows the time it has taken to carry out the cloning.

    On newer kernel dd actually reports the time it took to complete the task.

    The time it takes is also easily estimated. Internal to internal disks cloning will get a throughput of between 40 to 60Mb/s, depending on the type of hard disk and CPU. If one of the disk is attached to a USB port then the speed will cut back to about 10 to 12 Mb/s.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  10. #85
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    SF Bay Area, CA
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    14,936
    Um, actually, that's not a function of the kernel version. It must be a function of the version of dd, since the only thing that dd does is call read() and write() in a loop (in the absence of errors, anyway). If dd prints out anything when it finishes, that's something that it does on its own.

    Also, while something like dd if=blah of=blah ; date will tell you what time the program completed, time dd if=blah of=blah will give you lots of info about how long dd took. (That's information like how much total wall time it took, how many CPU-seconds were spent in userspace, and how many CPU-seconds were spent in kernel space. The sum of the second and third are not necessarily equal to the first, because of multi-processor machines.)

  11. #86
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
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    2
    Hey,
    I just joined to say thanks, this worked perfectly on my lifebook without any drives whatsoever - that's no CD, no floppy, and won't boot from USB.
    I just wanted to make a suggestion to those who are doing this in order to install an OS on a laptop such as the one I have:
    On another laptop with a CDROM and a working copy of XP, I went to install a fresh copy of XP and made sure it copied the source files to the installation disk - basically to the point where you boot and it will continue the installation.
    Then I took an external usb adapter, hooked up a "blank" hard drive, and formatted and partitioned the drive.
    I booted ubuntu, and followed your instructions - making *SURE* to make the partition identical, and after several hours (usb 1.1 is slowwww - 12000 seconds) I just dropped the hard drive into the lifebook and proceeded to finish installing XP. No problems, no worries, no extra steps.
    Note > Several hours for 12gb. USB 1.1 is severely overrated.

  12. #87
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    koppit,

    Welcome to Justlinux!


    USB 1.1 is rated at 12 Mbit/s whereas the standard USB 2.0 runs at 480Mbit/s. The ratio is is a 40-fold increase.

    I would take the laptop disks and mounted them as internal disks (with 2.5" to 3.5" disk adaptors) in a desktop PC to speed things up. Internal disks can run at 3 to 5 times faster than the fastest USB.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  13. #88
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Posts
    2
    Yeah, definitely I figured that out afterwards. I bought an ide adapter so I don't have to worry about this again. For $3 I think it's worth it.

    But in any case, my post was more about the fact I didn't have to fixmbr.
    I'm sure I could've done this with any livecd, too.
    Can DD copy a hard drive including mbr into a disc image?

  14. #89
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    Jun 2004
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    You can tell dd the output is a file in another hard disk.

    dd copies the binary data inside a partition or a disk. You get everything. The MBR is just the first sector of the a hard disk.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  15. #90
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    London, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    2

    Clone XP with Live CD

    I used this method to clone my XP SP2 HDD, and it worked perfectly. I moved from a 250 gb to 500gb Hitachi SATA deskstar. It worked very well, and took about 2 hours and 20 minutes to complete.
    I used an Ubuntu 8.10 (beta) CD. Instructions were clear and results have been great.
    For the unallocated section left over, I just formatted it as another "drive" with the XP drive management stuff.
    Thanks very much for the instructions.. saved me the purchase of Ghost or another backup software.
    I had tried HDClone but couldn't get it to work ( no mouse control when booted into HDClone, and the fixes that I found didn't overcome the problem)
    Thanks again.
    David Evans
    London, Canada

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