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I have a HDD with several partitions, each with a different Operating System.

If possible, I would like to make one image of the entire hdd so that it can be restored at a later date.

The other questions on this site that I have found are specific to Windows, which is not useful to me.

I was thinking of using dd with a linux rescue disk, however I am unsure what paramaters to use as far as blocksize and such.

Additionally, if I image a 320gb hdd, I would like to know if it possible to deploy it to a larger hdd such as a 500gb.

Would I have to image the hdd in a special way for that to be possible?

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1 Answer

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clonezilla should do the trick - it runs partimage (more efficient than dd) and will back up the whole hard drive. Most decent backup solutions (clonezilla included) will back up to a larger drive - whether you want to do drive to drive, or drive to image to drive.

DD is possible, but its risky, one mistake and you irrecoverably wipe your drive.

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Also, tools like clonezilla can sometimes backup a 320G disk to a smaller disk (presuming you don't have more actual files stored on the 320G disk than will fit on the smaller disk). – Slartibartfast Jun 25 '11 at 3:00
its a little more complex, but yes - the original question didn't ask about it though. – Journeyman Geek Jun 25 '11 at 4:53
Indeed. It asked about the converse situation: copying a smaller disc to a larger disc. That really should have been a separate question, though. I'm surprised that it hasn't been asked already. – JdeBP Jun 25 '11 at 8:32

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