Software to partition-clone and *verify*? (Win or Linux)

[nageme]

Where is it documented?
BTW, sounds inefficient.

 

[unwind-protect]

The cmp(1) utility also works on raw devices:

dd if=/dev/sda of=diskimage
cmp /dev/sda diskimage

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

I guess my question would be, what verification are you seeking that cannot be done with fsck, sha1sum, and/or md5sum?

fsck and hash it before transfer, fsck and hash it after. If its clean and hashes match, what other verification do you need?

Doesn't really matter what software you move the data with, especially 1:1.....could just use dd.

 

[johnspack]

There is literally nothing that can go wrong with dd like copying, unless you have bad cables, drives ect. And you can always test it afterwards and see if it boots and everything works.
Just DO IT!

 

[lexluthermiester]

Where is it documented?
BTW, sounds inefficient.

I'm presuming that was a reply to me? I'm not sure where it's documented, I know how it works because of the errors I've seen trying to image to/from drives with errors/problems. If a sector copy fails a verify, it alerts the user. Efficient or not, it gets the job done and very well.

 

[AusWolf]

I've been using EaseUS for years now, but for some reason it won't clone the built-in Windows 10 drive on my netbook (I want to swap it for Linux without losing a legit copy), so I'll try Acronis now.

On Linux, you've got a built-in tool (at least with KDE) called KDE Partition Manager which can copy and back up partitions, although I'm not sure if it does it bit-by-bit, and it doesn't do whole drives.

 

[lexluthermiester]

On Linux, you've got a built-in tool (at least with KDE) called KDE Partition Manager which can copy and back up partitions, although I'm not sure if it does it bit-by-bit, and it doesn't do whole drives.

Gparted does. Sector-by-sector copies. It's a terminal based utility, but it gets the job done.

 

[igormp]

Gparted does. Sector-by-sector copies. It's a terminal based utility, but it gets the job done.

Gparted does have a GUI, and I can recommend it as well.
Aren't you thinking of parted? It's the CLI tool that Gparted uses underneath.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Gparted does have a GUI, and I can recommend it as well.

Gparted itself, yes, but the drive copy utility included with the Gparted live drive is terminal based.

 

[igormp]

Gparted itself, yes, but the drive copy utility included with the Gparted live drive is terminal based.

Then it's likely parted you're talking about, or some other tool like dd or fdisk, not gparted itself, just to clear things out.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Then it's likely parted you're talking about, or some other tool like dd or fdisk, not gparted itself, just to clear things out.

To remind myself, just booted up the USB drive I use and it turns out I was thinking of PartedMagic, which contains Gparted. It has the utility I was thinking of included, Clonezilla, which is a terminal based utility. It's been a little while..

PartedMagic - Partitioning, Cloning, Rescue, and Erasing.

PartedMagic - Inexpensive and easy to use Disk Partitioning, Disk Cloning, Data Rescue & Recovery, Disk Erasing, and Benchmarking software.

partedmagic.com

For most users familiar with Windows, AOMEI or EaseUS would be easier to use.

 

[Wasteland]

I've been using EaseUS for years now, but for some reason it won't clone the built-in Windows 10 drive on my netbook (I want to swap it for Linux without losing a legit copy), so I'll try Acronis now.

On Linux, you've got a built-in tool (at least with KDE) called KDE Partition Manager which can copy and back up partitions, although I'm not sure if it does it bit-by-bit, and it doesn't do whole drives.

You can clone disks in a linux live environment with the dd command. I've done it several times myself. I've also heard good things about Clonezilla.

No need to use paid third party software, if you don't want to.

EDIT: let me add an important point that my link appears to gloss over. Here's a better link, from the brilliant Archwiki. If you're cloning reasonably fast disks, then dd's default block size of 512 bytes might suck. You can raise the block size using the 'bs' argument, like so:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb status=progress bs=64K

(where "if" is your input device, and "of" is the output. "status=progress" simply keeps you in the loop during the process.)