[Cialug] dd for clones/baclups (was Re: Transplant OS)

[chris]

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> The problem with using dd... as has been pointed out in the past
> here... is if you have corrupted sectors, dd may copy the
> corruption.

> -dc


Interesting.  I could see this being a problem when trying to copy a
failing hard drive but not for a migration/cloning exercise.

If a sector is truly corrupt then dd will not be able to read it.  dd
can be told to pad those bad reads with 00 and go on.  If that sector
had been marked bad by the filesystem/OS  already then this is not an
issue because the tables that record the bad sectors will be included
in the image you create.

I have used this method in mass cloning of literally thousands of disk
images over the years and never had a single issue, ever.  MD5 sums
can be used to verify that your image matches your original.  DD has
been my tried and true backup/migration tool for a very long time.

crr
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