Re: disk cloning ?

["Karl E. Jorgensen" <karl@jorgensen.org.uk>]

Hi

On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 04:46:07AM -0800, hadi motamedi wrote:
> Dear All
> I needed to clone my disk to another hard drive . I did it as the following :
> #dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc
> But after a while, the procedure ended with the "writing to /dev/sdc
> input/output error" message.

In general, that is what you would do with two disks of identical size.

If the disks are NOT of identical size, then you will probably need to
copy each partition: copying the whole disk will also copy the
partition table. And the partition table for a smaller disk will not
be suitable for a bigger disk....

I.e. first run "fdisk -l /dev/sdb" to list your existing partitions
and create similar partitions on the new disk. (You have to chance to
re-order them here if you want).

Then copy each partition separately:

     dd if=/dev/sdb1 of=/dev/sdc1

etc. (copying multiple partitions in parallel will actually take
longer..)

> Can you please let me know how can I overcome this as the fdisk now returns as "
> #fdisk /dev/sdc
> "I do not know how to handle files with mode 81a4
> must set cylinders"

That error message is new on me...

Hope this helps

-- 
Karl E. Jorgensen