R&S CMU200/CRTU-RU: How to backup entire HDD?

[Bicurico]

Hi,

This may strike you as a stupid question, but I have not found a way, yet, despite several attempts.

The CRTU-RU I have has an 80GB HDD. It has several partitions for the DOS and Windows 2000 modes, as well as, the maintenance mode (DOS) and a partition where PartionMagic seems to keep backups.

I removed the HDD from the CRTU-RU and connected it via USB-SATA/PATA adapter to my PC and booted Clonezilla. With this tool I created a full backup image. So far so good. Verifying the image with Clonezilla gave an OK.

Then I desconnected the HDD and rebooted with a spare HDD:

First attempt: I connected a 40GB 2.5" HDD. I figured that while the original HDD was 80GB, the big Windows 2000 partition was almost completely empty and I did a defrag before cloning, that Clonezilla should be able to shrink this partition to fit the new HDD. To make it short: that did not work at all.

Second attempt: I connected a 80GB 3.5" HDD, for the sake of it and to test if the 6GB Image file would be able to restore the original HDD if required. This time Clonezilla finished the job, but trying to boot from this HDD just gives me the GRUB RESTORE shell. I tried to play with it with no result.

Third attempt: I tried to write the image again onto the 80GB HDD, using different options, but got exactly the same result.

Because I don't want to endlessly try and clone the original 80GB HDD, to avoid CREATING a problem this way, I wonder how you guy's managed to get a 1:1 clone of the entire disk?

Is there any sector to sector freeware copy tool?

What are the options to clone the original 80GB HDD to a 40GB HDD, knowing that from the 80GB HDD only around 6GB are effectively being used?

Thanks,
Vitor

[Kim_555]

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[Bicurico]

Thanks!

Going to give it a try and will report back.

Regards,
Vitor

[HighVoltage]

I would also use Acronis True Image
Make sure to select the checkbox for the "entire disk" !

[CJay]

I had the same issue with CLonezilla, seems to be a little flaky when the hardware used is nto the hardware the image is to be used on.

I had success with Norton Ghost and I think another user here used a piece of software called HDD Rawcopy successfully.

[drussell]

dd if=/dev/ada1 of=/dev/ada2 bs=128k

...is the proper way... 

[Monkeh]

You can try Acronis True image bootable iso. Please link <snip>

Really? Just.. really?

[Velund]

Really? Just.. really?

I used Acronis boot CD (written by Acronis True Image Home software) to backup CMU200 hdd recently - full sector-by-sector copy worked fine, restored to another physical disk.

[Monkeh]

Really? Just.. really?

I used Acronis boot CD to backup CMU200 hdd recently - full sector-by-sector copy worked fine, restored to another physical disk.

And did you pay for it? Because it's not free, and the password protected non-descriptive download link makes that quite clear.

[Velund]

And did you pay for it? Because it's not free, and the password protected non-descriptive download link makes that quite clear.

Yes, of course (to both questions). But you can use trial version if all you need is just a one time disk copy.

http://www.acronis.com/en-gb/personal/computer-backup/

Scroll down until you see "download free trial". You can try to make boot CD of course, and I doubt it will expire together with installed trial copy. Oops, trial really make crippled recovery CD's (restore-only), so you have to use windows trial installation within trial period to make backups.

[jpc]

This is free for personal use;

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/br-free/

and can resize on the fly when restoring an image to a different sized partition than the original as long as there is enough space for the actual data on the target partition. I've been using Paragon's tools it since Windows 95 and 98 days without a single restore failure.

There's a slew of their free for personal use disk management/recovery tools and file system tools for various OSs at this link;

https://www.paragon-software.com/free/

[drussell]

If the above listed dd command line is too confusing for you, there is always gparted:

http://gparted.org/

It is essentially like partition magic but free and open source.

Of course, you don't even need to run gparted...  You still just boot using the live CD and then type the dd line, except it is linux instead of FreeBSD so the devices will be something like /dev/sda, /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc for the 1st, 2nd or 3rd hard disks connected to the system.  Be sure you don't copy your new blank drive over top of the one with the data on it! 

[free_electron]

clonezilla is junk. for weird drive layouts it doesn't work.

Ghost or acronis.

and in really complicated cases : Startech

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/storage/50822/startech-usb-to-ide-sata-standalone-hard-drive-duplicator-dock-review

i use one of those. has never failed me.

[Monkeh]

and in really complicated cases : Startech

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/storage/50822/startech-usb-to-ide-sata-standalone-hard-drive-duplicator-dock-review

i use one of those. has never failed me.

Or, in those same cases: Any Linux distro. That's all that Startech box will be anyway, most likely.

dd is 100% reliable if the drive is working.

[Kim_555]

Really? Just.. really?

I used Acronis boot CD to backup CMU200 hdd recently - full sector-by-sector copy worked fine, restored to another physical disk.

And did you pay for it? Because it's not free, and the password protected non-descriptive download link makes that quite clear.

I found this link in Google, and I think that an ISO file (bootable media) you can create in a trial version. But here at the discretion of each, i just pointed out a simple way.

[CJay]

Do *NOT* use PAragon, it has in the past installed pernicious and difficult to remove spy/adware.

[jpc]

It never has for me and I've been using their various tools since the 90s. Just the other week I downloaded from the Paragon site (I have come across modified installers on warez sites in the past) and installed their HDM free for a mate with no issues or hidden nasties anywhere.

[CJay]

It never has for me and I've been using their various tools since the 90s. Just the other week I downloaded from the Paragon site (I have come across modified installers on warez sites in the past) and installed their HDM free for a mate with no issues or hidden nasties anywhere.

You have better luck than I then but the copy I had definitely did not come from a warez or other third party site.

[Bicurico]

Hi,

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

I did not imagine Clonezilla was that bad! I thought it was the best freeware option...

Looking at all options given, I think I will give the dd a chance, but I need some help:

1) I was thinking to boot from a Live DVD (i.e. Ubuntu). Anything wrong with that?
2) Do I need to copy each partition manually? Or will I be copying the whole disk 1:1?
3) What if the destination disk is slightly bigger (i.e. 76.3GB and source 74.9GB)?
4) What if the destination disk is smaller?

My intention at the end is to have a whole backup of the original 80GB 2.5" PATA HDD on a 40GB 2.5" PATA HDD. This requires to resize the Windows 2000 partition only (not all partitions).

For that I want to do a 1:1 backup to a 80GB 3.5" HDD. From this HDD I want resize the Windows 2000 partition and THEN do a second clone to the smaller disk (partition wise).

Is this possible?

i don't want to use illegal software...

Funny how little I know about HDD cloning - despite working every day with computers and supporting them, I don't remember having to do a HDD clone.

Regards,
Vitor

[CJay]

I used to have to clone disks most days to deploy operating systems, nowadays it's done with Windows Deployment services so the market for disk cloning software seems to be shrinking from where I sit, of course others may see it differently and I could well be wrong but that's the experience I have...

I still have commercial licences for Acronis and Ghost, both of which are smart enough to be able to deal with larger/smaller and different geometry disks but I have now tested and verified that HDD Raw Copy works too.

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/

[drussell]

1) I was thinking to boot from a Live DVD (i.e. Ubuntu). Anything wrong with that?

Nope, any FreeBSD or Linux install or live CD (like FreeSBIE or Ubuntu Live disk) should work as long as it includes the dd utility, which is very small and should be present on any useful live CD.

2) Do I need to copy each partition manually? Or will I be copying the whole disk 1:1?

No, you can just copy the whole disk by specifying the whole disk device for your source and destination drives.  It is possible to copy just single partitions at a time if you wanted to but unless you put them in the same places on the destination disk you would have to manually make a new partition table for the destination. 

It can be handy, though, if you're trying to back up a single partition to a file on a destination filesystem for safekeeping or to mount them from a virtual disk linked to the file, etc. instead of a whole disk, like:

dd if=/dev/ada0s1 of=boot_partition.raw bs=128k
dd if=/dev/ada0s2 of=system_partition.raw bs=128k
(...this example uses FreeBSD's device naming...)

etc... would make separate files in the current directory for these source partitions.

3) What if the destination disk is slightly bigger (i.e. 76.3GB and source 74.9GB)?

No problems, you will just have a some free space at the end of the disk that could be used to extend the last partition or create an additional partition or whatever.

4) What if the destination disk is smaller?

If the source disk has a partition extending into that region you're going to need to shrink the partition first before you copy or else you will be missing the end of the partition.  You can easily use a program like gparted to do that for most parition types as long as it isn't full so can be shrunk.  Even Disk Administrator will work for most Windows partitions, obviously.

My intention at the end is to have a whole backup of the original 80GB 2.5" PATA HDD on a 40GB 2.5" PATA HDD. This requires to resize the Windows 2000 partition only (not all partitions).

For that I want to do a 1:1 backup to a 80GB 3.5" HDD. From this HDD I want resize the Windows 2000 partition and THEN do a second clone to the smaller disk (partition wise).

Is this possible?

Most certainly, and that is precisely what I would do.  Make an exact copy first so you can't accidentally lose anything, then shrink the partition so it will fit on the smaller disk and copy that. 

I do this all the time to move people's current HDD data onto a SSD...  Often a significantly smaller SSD than the source HDD.

Easy, peasy....

Just make sure you get the disk numbers correct before actually executing the dd command!  FreeBSD's "camcontrol devlist -v" command makes this very easy.  On linux, you need to cat a bunch of stat files in /dev/ to check each device or rely on your kernel messages when you boot or plug the disk(s) in on an already running system.

[Kim_555]

The easiest way, no dances with a tambourine 

Creating a complete archive:

https://youtu.be/3dTuy-0fe1Q

Restore (transfer) data to a new disk:

https://youtu.be/n8OevhK0y6s


Free trial - http://www.acronis.com/en-us/homecomputing/thanks/acronis-true-image-2017/

[bitwelder]

In place of Acronis, I'd suggest to try with Macrium Reflect free. I don't need it that often, but it did help to do some wonky disk imaging (also differential ones, but that's beyond the OP request):
https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

[free_electron]

Or, in those same cases: Any Linux distro. That's all that Startech box will be anyway, most likely.

dd is 100% reliable if the drive is working.

no it is not. the startech box uses a small microcontroller (it's a simple 8 bit processor )
The startech box can clone drives with bad sectors. or weird layouts. it does not care about file systems.
even 'protected' drives with tracks or sectors deliberately corrupted get copied correctly. all it does is read byte / write byte. from track0 head 0  to the end of the drive.

[voltsandjolts]

dd does bit for bit copying and Clonezilla has worked fine for me.

[Monkeh]

Or, in those same cases: Any Linux distro. That's all that Startech box will be anyway, most likely.

dd is 100% reliable if the drive is working.

no it is not. the startech box uses a small microcontroller (it's a simple 8 bit processor )
The startech box can clone drives with bad sectors. or weird layouts. it does not care about file systems.
even 'protected' drives with tracks or sectors deliberately corrupted get copied correctly. all it does is read byte / write byte. from track0 head 0  to the end of the drive.

An 8-bit micro handling ATA controllers? That's novel. Probably slow, too..

And if you do a little research: dd and ddrescue do not care about filesystems. Yes, you're hearing me right: The Big Bad Linux Monster can do things low level and simple.

[drussell]

Indeed...  dd is an exact sector-by-sector copier unless you tell it to do otherwise.  For small damaged source disks/partitions/files you can just do it all in single sector mode:

dd if=<source> of=<destination> conv=sync,noerror bs=512

The bs=512 should be optional since that is the default, but you might need to specify a blocksize explicitly it if, for example, the source is a CD where you would need 2048 as that is the actual sector size.  Many newer hard disks use 4096 byte sectors, though they can "emulate" 512-byte sector accesses.

The sync,noerror conversion types mean fill with NULLs if I can't read a spot instead of truncating the file (and you DON'T WANT it to truncate if you are copying a whole disk, obviously!!) and continue copying after an error.

With large disks, though, copying the whole thing one 512-byte sector at a time is going to be incredibly slow so it is better to copy in 128k blocks (or whatever the maximum block size is for the OS you're on) first, THEN go back and fill in the spots that are missing 512-bytes at a time. 

This can be done manually using the iseek= and oseek= (seek / skip) options in conjunction with the count= option to put missing bits in specified places but there is the ddrescue tool which does it for you automatically, reading in big chunks first then automatically going back and retrying missing bits afterwards, keeping track of where it is in case you have to abort and resume later, etc.  VERY handy. 

ddrescue has been included in the base FreeBSD system for years but should easily be available on pretty much any platform and is definitely the way to go if you are trying to image a failing drive.

[Papa_O]

I know this is an old thread. I have a Rohde & Schwarz CRTU-RU with a dead hard drive. I was wondering if anyone could help with a hard drive image. Thanks