Re: backing up a drive
On Mon, 20 Mar 2006, Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
I seem to recall that it doesn't. I believe that dd will cause the
partition to think it's the size of the original partition. So it
"works," but you can only use as much space as the original hard drive
had.
That's right. It does work in so far as the original filesystem is
restored and all it costs you is a little wasted space. For most people a
small price to get their system back working, at least in the short term.
There may be a way around this limitation or to fix it after
performing dd.
Following a reimaging from dd the options to expand the filesystem are:
1. Resize the filesystem using suitable tools if possible.
or
2. Take the data off using a tool like dump, xfsdump (for xfs), cpio or
tar and remake the filesystem before restoring. Of course if any of these
work then use them instead of dd in the first instance. dd is really only
useful for backups where other tools may not work well (eg, to backup an
NTFS file system from Linux when you fear making a new NTFS filesystem may
be difficult in the future).
dd takes up more space (since it backs up the filesystem rather than the
files), is very rigid and does not allow for anything except a full
backup.
Rob
--
Robert Brockway B.Sc. Phone: +1-905-821-2327
Senior Technical Consultant Urgent Support: +1-416-669-3073
OpenTrend Solutions Ltd Email: support@opentrend.net
Web: www.opentrend.net
We are open 24x365 for technical support. Call us in a crisis.
Reply to: