so here is the deal.
i wanna try out win 7 on my secondary pc.
but as i dont want to lose all data i wanna create a image of the HDD to keep it on my main pc, that i have the chance to switch back to it later on.
does anyone know if that is possible?
if so, could u link me?

Quote from [RCG]Boosted :

so here is the deal.
i wanna try out win 7 on my secondary pc.
but as i dont want to lose all data i wanna create a image of the HDD to keep it on my main pc, that i have the chance to switch back to it later on.
does anyone know if that is possible?
if so, could u link me?

You can always use "dd" if you boot from a linux boot disk, but there are more efficient ways to copy (dd produces a "perfect" copy though).

Not sure of many alternatives, I've used dd a variety of times to backup OSX and XP and restored without trouble (so long as you're restoring to the same partition).

dd is an linux app?
does it output the original size, or smaller?

Quote from [RCG]Boosted :

dd is an linux app?
does it output the original size, or smaller?

It's a bit by bit duplicate of a partition/hard drive/file.

CloneZilla might be what you're after. It's an open clone of Norton/Symantec Ghost.

It's also somewhat friendlier to use than dd directly.

Or maybe you should just get a new HDD? I mean they're dirt cheap anyway

hmm thats an option.
do u know by chance if it matters what format the partinions are in?
as i have both ubuntu and XP on it, one is NTFS and one ext3.

Quote from morpha :

Or maybe you should just get a new HDD? I mean they're dirt cheap anyway

my bank balance: 25€
new money to come on: 30.08.09
result: impossible!

you can try demon tools.

if im right you can hdd images with it, too

skip all that and try ghost or acronis...

Clonezilla is the free alternative, its not as polished as ghost/acronis but it works. (its just a wrapper for dd so the image will be huge unless you enable impossibly slow compression)

Another alternative is to move out most files and then shrink the partition but im not sure if win7 is safe to install to a secondary partition. To shrink boot a linux live cd with gparted (you need a very new livecd with a new kernel for good ntfs support). Sometimes gparted cant shrink as much as you like, but just boot windows once to get an fscheck filesystem reconstruction and you can then boot the livecd and shrink more.

Fedora11 live does not have gparted installed but that is no problem just install it with yum install gparted and then you have it (if you have a liveusb you will keep it if livecd you will need to reinstall next boot)

EDIT: Saw you got ubuntu, you can change the XP partition from there.

Quote from arco :

http://www.todo-backup.com/

now that looks even easier...pretty much what i searched.
thanks, i guess im gonna try this one out first.