Backing Up a Windows System

[Kenneth]

> OK:  I have reduced the XP partition to 9 GB
> (Bless You, GPartEd!).  I propose to use dd to
> copy the entire 9 GB to another disk, through
> a compressor.  Then if the XP partition becomes
> unusable I should be able to just uncompress
> the whole image back onto the original partition.
> 
> Right?
> 
> Command-line suggestions for the save and
> restore operations?

dd if=/dev/hdax bs=1024k | gzip > /path/to/save/file
gunzip -c /path/to/save/file | dd of=/dev/hdax bs=1024k

Notes:
Replace hdax with whatever is appropriate for the partition in question.
Replace gzip with bzip2 -9 and gunzip with bunzip2 for max compression.

Seems like it should work fine.

As with any backup strategy, I would test that the restore works before
needing to depend on it.


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