using dd for cloning

[Vincent Trouilliez]

On Sat, 09 Feb 2008 10:38:18 -0500
elmo <elmo at ne.rr.com> wrote:

> I have just about given up with using various cloning programs in ubuntu 
> and have just tried using the ' dd'
> command to copy partition to partition
> 
> My UBUNTU is on partition sda2 and I'd like to clone it to sdc1 , a ext3 
> formatted partition on an external hard drive.
> 
> I tried  running:    dd if=/dev/sda2  of=/dev/sdc1 bs=512
> 
> I couldn't see any action except a constantly blinking mark.  I waited 
> for a minute or so and there was no change, just a blinking mark. I 
> wasn't sure if this indicated that data was being transferred or not.

I can't help you much about using dd for cloning partitions, as I am
not even sure it's wise trying to do it (I would just use a regular
copy command, like "cp", or simply do it in Gnome using the file
manager, for example). However I use dd for other things
(creating ISO files from CDs or DVDs mostly), and I also get nothing
but a blinking cursor while it's copying data. Hard drives are very
slow, so it will probably take many minutes to clone your partitions, so
chances are that dd was working as normal, and that you interrupted it
before it could finish copying the data.

HTH

--
Vince