On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 07:40 -0500, John Fleming wrote: > >> > A pointer: take a dump of the entire drive (dd if=/dev/hda) and not > >> > just > >> > partition. > > Please tell this newbie additional info that's probably obvious to everyone > else - What all should be stopped while dd is doing it's thing, IOW stop > mail server and anything else that might be actively trying to change files > during the dd? What all comes to mind - mail, cron, Apache...others?? > > What's the worst thing that might happen if active services are NOT > stopped - a jumbled mail message or could the whole filesystem end up > unusable in this case?? > > Thanks - John >
Well, according to me a dd of a live system is a really bad idea. The safest way is just boot with a live linux CD (knoppix for instance) and dump the partitions from the HDD. Do NOT dump a mounted partition. Access the partition directly using the device (/dev/hda1 for instance). This way you'll have a consistent dump of your partition. I do not know what would happen if you dump a live system, but I don't think much good can come from it. Philippe De Ryck -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
