Using 'dd' or 'dcfldd'for disk imaging and backup

DD is a very ancient unix utility that still has its superiority in the disk imaging and cloning categories of tools. Being command lined based, it reads from standard input and write to its standard output which allows you to use 'pipes' for advanced processing and remote networking capabilities.

DCFLDD is an enhanced version of dd and follows the same structure when passing arguments, i.e, keyword=value format. The commands are almost identical so you can pretty much use the same commands that you use in dd with dcfldd but not necessarily the other way around as the later has some enhancements that dd does not have. Some of dcfldd enhancements include

• Hashing on-the-fly - dcfldd can hash the input data as it is being transferred, helping to ensure data integrity.
• Status output - dcfldd can update the user of its progress in terms of the amount of data transferred and how much longer operation will take.
• Flexible disk wipes - dcfldd can be used to wipe disks quickly and with a known pattern if desired.
• Image/wipe Verify - dcfldd can verify that a target drive is a bit-for-bit match of the specified input file or pattern.
• Multiple outputs - dcfldd can output to multiple files or disks at the same time.
• Split output - dcfldd can split output to multiple files with more configurability than the split command.
• Piped output and logs - dcfldd can send all its log data and output to commands as well as files natively.

Using dd you can create backups of an entire harddisks or just parts of it.
Hard disk copy/Back up::
# dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb
# dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/image
# dd if=/dev/sda | gzip > /path/to/image.gz //makes image of sda disk and pipes it to the gzip program for compression of the backup image file image.gz

Restore Backup
# dd if=/path/to/image of=/dev/sda
# gzip -dc /path/to/image.gz | dd of=/dev/sda

MBR Backup
# dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/mbr/image count=1 bs=512

MBR Restore
# dd if=/path/to/mbr/image of=/dev/sda
add "count=1 bs=446" to exclude the partiton table

More Advance commands
# dcfldd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/image bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror //

make an iso image of CD
# dcfldd if=/dev/cd of=/home/mycd.iso bs=2048 conv=notrunc // CD sectors are 2048 bytes so this copies sector to sector. The result will be a hard disk image file of the CD. You can use "chmod a+rwx mycd.iso" to make the image writable.

make an iso image of Hard disk
# dcfldd if=/dev/hda of=/home/disk.iso bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror

To mount the image: # mount -o loop /path/to/image /mnt/mountpoint

In some cases, you would not be able to mount the image file. What you need to do is determine the offset of the sector (not the cyclinder). You can get the cylinder offests using fdisk.

First, associate one of the loop interfaces with the image file # losetup /dev/loop0 /path/to/image

Then
# fdisk -l /dev/loop0

Disk /dev/sdb: 8036 MB, 8036285952 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 977 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1         976     7839698    b  W95 FAT32

What we really want is the offset of the sector so we add the '-u' flag to fdisk
# fdisk -ul /dev/loop0

Disk /dev/sdb: 8036 MB, 8036285952 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 977 cylinders, total 15695871 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          44    15679439     7839698    b  W95 FAT32

We then take the start of the partition that you want to edit 44 in this case and multiply it by 512 ie 512*44=22528

then mount like this: # mount -o loop,offset=22528 /dev/loop0 /mnt/mountpoint