Open question: What have you used? Symantec Ghost vs Ghost for Linux G4L vs Acronis - what have you used that worked and on what file system version EXT2, EXT3 etc. SEE Earlier Post: http://www.computing.net/linux/wwwboard/forum/27763.html Note: Norton Ghost for Linux does not work correctly. You can prove this easily enough by going to their web site and looking at the mixed / partial support of variouos versionos of Linux. If the SECTOR BY SECTOR COPY mode fixed everything then why would 7.0 not work on ext3 filesystem fully? And only support ext2? I tested version 7.0 with Mandriva 10.1 and it did copy the entire drive to another drive but the new drive would not boot correctly even after re-installing the bootloader. Bad superblock? I forget. Here are two choices that I have tested and DO WORK with Mandrivia / mandrake 10.1x I did a write up: http://www.wecandobetter.com/KnowledgeBase/Acronis_TrueImage_For_Windows_v8.html

I normally just use dd to make a direct bit for bit copy of a drive/partition. Quite a while ago I used g4u (Ghost for Unix) which g4l (Ghost for Linux) is basically just a rip-off of (http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/g4l.html)....but that just uses dd anyway.

what is the syntax of dd command if you have two hard drive... im new to linux... thnx n advance...

# dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb That is a very simple example, it will copy the input file (hence if) /dev/hda (primary hard drive) to your primary slave (/dev/hdb). If you want to do partitions then it would be something like /dev/hda2. What I normally use it for is creating a gzipped image over a network to an NFS share, something like: # dd if=/dev/$disk bs=1M | gzip -c - > /mnt/nfsshare/image.gz You can also use dd for wiping or backing up your MBR. To wipe it: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 To wipe MBR but keep partition table intact: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1 To copy your MBR to a floppy to make it able to boot your system: # dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1 $ man dd for more info.

Please be carefull when using dd, since copying drive hda to hdb will wipe out everything on hdb. Both G4U and G4L are good for making and restoring images via ftp, and can do it locally. The current g4l has been using dialog for the gui, and offers gzip, lzop, and bzip compression. I would suggest checking out the info on both the g4u and g4l pages.

First off thanks if you reply. So 3Dave what exactly do you do to restore these gziped images.... and rather than a floppy backup for booting how do you restore the boot image to the hard drive... I don't know about you but I haven't even Seen a disk of any sort for at least 4 years. This poor sorry sap can only afford cd's for 5 cents a piece(they are just slightly larger by at least 40x) verses a floppy for $1.09. But that is not the point ... how does one restore both the gz image and the boot sector... a partial answer isn't quite what we're looking for. Sorry if I seem up front but complete answers are better than partial...anotherwords 'man' does not tell us how to restore either the boot record or the nicely gz'd image. Please expound you're knowledge.

To restore your MBR from the floppy just switch round the input and output files: # dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 To restore the gzipped image: # gunzip -c /mnt/nfsshare/image.gz | dd bs=1M of=/dev/hda