Ghost 8.x and Grub/EXT2,3?

[blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

Scott Ehrlich wrote:
> So it sounds like, for even dual-boot machines with Grub as the 
> installer and EXT2 and/or EXT3 partitions, there may not be a good Open 
> Source option at this time?

In terms of a packaged solution with efficient compression, perhaps not. 
Though you mentioned dump earlier, and I haven't tried it myself.

If you don't need efficient compression (skipping of unused areas of the 
disk), then its hard to beat the simplicity of dd. If you don't need the 
flexibility of restoring individual partitions, you can dd the entire 
raw disk device, and preserve the MBR, partition table, and everything 
else. Otherwise, write a little script to dd each partition, dd the MBR, 
and use sfdisk to save the partition table.

(This is covered in the ntfsresize FAQ:
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html#cli
)

One big advantage of dd is that although any compression you might apply 
to the image will be less efficient, neither the format of the 
underlying image file nor the compression will be dependent on 
specialized tools, which you might not have handy when you need to 
perform the restore. Pretty much *any* bootable Linux CD will be able to 
ungzip and dd an image.

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/

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