Quote:
Originally Posted by mkx
I heard I can quick format it and make an image with get databack but since I might only have once chance to restore this drive I want to make sure I know what I am doing.
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Good thinking. Normally before doing anything that could possibly make any changes to
a damaged drive, you want to first make a copy of it. On Windows, you can go down
to your local store and spend $75 on Norton Ghost, or you can download any boot
floppy, CD-ROM, or DVD from any other operating system made since 1970 and
a "copy something" tool will be included. So rather than waste a trip to the store and
$75, just download any Linux. The big Linux distros that take a while to download
will have pretty icons you can click to copy your drive. With little floppy based ones
that download in 60 seconds, you have to type the "dd" command.
Assuming you're impatient and download a tiny floppy style one, here are the
commands to type:
fdisk -l /dev/sda
fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Look carefully and make sure you know which is your old disk and which is the
new one you're copying to. Then check again. You don't want to copy emptiness
onto your data drive, so be sure you know which drive is which. Then:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
The above is if sda of the old drive (input) and sdb is the new (output).
otherwise, reverse it:
dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sda
You now have a copy of your drive.