[Durham] Backing up and resorting a Windows7 install using Linux boot media

[Dougie Nisbet]

On 2 December 2013 17:31, Richard Mortimer <richm at oldelvet.org.uk> wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> On 02/12/2013 16:18, Dougie Nisbet wrote:
>
>> I have a failing disk in a Lenovo ThinkCentre A57. It has a WD 320GB
>> drive.
>>
> How "failing" is the disk? It might be easier to resize before moving.
>

good question - possibly more failing than I first realised. Windows
reports SMART error BAD disk on boot then makes a half-assed boot anyway
that occasionally gets as far as login.


>
>  I'm wondering whether I can boot the PC from Linux and backup the
>> system using tar and restore to a different harddrive.
>>
> I don't think you will get away with tar/restore. You'll need to get all
> the NTFS ACLs and things like that - we'll I'd worry about not getting
> things like that anyway.
>

>
>  Then try to boot
>> the PC from the restored drive. All I can find is another WD but a 250GB
>> one. What's my chances of success? Would a re-install be  easier? I
>> thought of dd too but I'm guessing that the drives would have to be the
>> same size.
>>
> If the disk isn't too failing then resize the partition on the old PC to
> say 230GB and then dd the image across. You might need to use ddrescue
> because that works around bad blocks reasonably well.
>
>
I'll give that a try. Boot with a live bootCD and gparted? Or something?



>  Once you've done that you will need to do a few clever steps to get the
> windows boot block and things like that hooked up again.
>
> I did this once on my dad's XP laptop and managed to transfer the disk but
> I was going to a bigger non-failing disk so it was much easier!
>
> Do you have any other system with a HD big enough to hold the 320G
> partition as an interim measure? It might be a good idea to take a "golden"
> of the drive just in case it fails completely or the transfer goes wrong.
>

clonezilla looked promising and seems to give an option to save to another
device. I'm going to try hooking up an external USB drive and will see if I
can take a 'golden' then take it from there.

thanks,

Dougie
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