Preparing for Linux Install Question: Saving current Hard Drive State
Hi All,
I just got a used HP dv5000 sff computer and looking to install a dual boot system. It has one of those, uh, other OSes on it...
I want to take a snapshot of the current HD before tinkering around.
I did some web searches and it looks like I can grab the whole contents and compress it by booting a Knoppix DVD and using dd if=/dev/hda | gzip -9 > <filename> and saving the output to a usb harddrive. What I'd like to know is if anyone else has done this? What I'd do should things do awry would be to restore the drive to it's original state with gzip -d <filename> >/dev/hda. Are there any additional parameters I should use like specifying the blocksize or use gzip -d <filename> | dd of=/dev/hda on restore?
Wanted to run this by the gurus before I get started.
Thanks
|