{"id":20,"date":"2008-08-14T15:50:19","date_gmt":"2008-08-14T19:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/?p=20"},"modified":"2008-08-14T15:50:19","modified_gmt":"2008-08-14T19:50:19","slug":"how-to-use-dd-to-copy-move-and-erase-disks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/2008\/08\/14\/how-to-use-dd-to-copy-move-and-erase-disks\/","title":{"rendered":"How to use dd to copy, move and erase disks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Often, you may encounter the need to move a partition, copy a partition or copy a CD\/DVD. The easiest and most user-friendly way to do this is with GParted<\/a>. However, in a server environment or a command line environment where the GUI is not available, GNU dd is an good way to perform these simple tasks. Here are easy tips on how to use dd for disk manipulation. Most of these commands require you to be part of the “disk” group.<\/p>\n

If you are on the Windows platform, you will need a copy of rawwrite dd<\/a> for Windows in your %PATH%. To list the disks with rawwrite dd, use dd –list<\/strong> and use the devices listed there; for example, use “\\\\?\\Device\\HarddiskVolume1” instead of “\/dev\/sda1”. For CD drives, replace \/dev\/cdrom with “\\\\?\\Device\\CdRom0”.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. dd if=\/dev\/partition<\/em> of=\/dev\/destination<\/em><\/strong> – Copy the partition partition<\/em> to the partition destination<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  2. dd if=\/dev\/cdrom of=filename.iso<\/em><\/strong> – Make an ISO image<\/a> of the disc in your CD drive as filename.iso<\/em>. Then you can use in Virtual Machines such as VMWare, mount it in Windows with DaemonTools or mount it as an file system in Linux.<\/li>\n
  3. dd something<\/em> bs=speed<\/em><\/strong> – Performs the action something<\/em> at the speed of speed <\/em>bytes per second. Can be used to copy CDs and disks faster.<\/li>\n
  4. dd if=\/dev\/zero of=\/dev\/pdest<\/em><\/strong> – Wipes the filesystem from the partition pdest<\/em>, which can you can then make a new filesystem with mkfs.ext3 \/dev\/pdest<\/em><\/strong>.<\/li>\n
  5. dd if=\/dev\/part<\/em> of=filename.disk<\/em><\/strong> – Makes a intact backup of everything on the partition part<\/em> into the file filename.disk<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  6. dd if=filename.disk<\/em> of=\/dev\/part<\/em><\/strong> – Copies from intact backup filename.disk<\/em> into the partition part<\/em>. Make sure that the partition part<\/em> is big enough to hold filename.disk<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  7. dd if=\/dev\/cdrom of=\/dev\/part<\/em> bs=10M <\/strong>– Copies the CD filesystem on your CD to the partition part<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  8. dd if=\/dev\/fd0 of=filename.img<\/em><\/strong> – Copies the floppy in your floppy drive to filename.img<\/em>. Then the image can be used in Virtual Machines.<\/li>\n
  9. dd if=filename.img<\/em> of=\/dev\/fd0<\/strong> – Copies the image filename.img<\/em> to the floppy in your floppy drive.<\/li>\n
  10. dd if=\/dev\/disk<\/em> of=bootsect.bin<\/em> bs=512 count=1<\/strong> – Copies the boot sector of disk disk<\/em> to the file bootsect.bin<\/em>.<\/li>\n
  11. dd if=\/dev\/disk<\/em> of=\/dev\/null <\/strong>– The best way to waste your CPU power; copies disk<\/em> to NULL.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So as you can see, dd is a very useful tool to manipulate partitions and images. If you found this article interesting or helpful, please help us spread the word or please leave a comment!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Often, you may encounter the need to move a partition, copy a partition or copy a CD\/DVD. The easiest and most user-friendly way to do this is with GParted. However, in a server environment or a command line environment where the GUI is not available, GNU dd is an good way to perform these simple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[64,61,63,66,62,862,68,67,863,60,65],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.compdigitec.com\/labs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}