Have just found this information at the following address. Has anyone
else tried it or can confirm it as an effective method?
http://www.softpanorama.org/Tools/dd.shtml
Getting around file size limitations
using split
When making images, it's quite easy to run up against various file
size limitations. One way to work around a given file size limitation
is to use the
split command.
# dd if=/dev/hda1 | gzip -c | split -b 2000m - /mnt/hdc1/backup.img.gz.
- This example is using dd to take an image of the first partition
on the first harddrive.
- The results are passed through to gzip for
compression
- The -c option switch is used to output the result to
stdout.
- The compressed image is then piped to the
split tool
- The -b 2000m switch tells split how big to make the
individual files. You can use k and m to tell switch kilobytes and
megabytes (this option uses bytes by default).
- The - option tells split to read from stdin.
Otherwise, split would interpret the /mnt/hdc1... as the file to be
split.
- The /mnt/hdc1... is the prefix for the created files. Split
will create files named backup.img.gz.aa, backup.img.gz.ab, etc.
To restore the multi-file backup, do the following:
# cat /mnt/hdc1/backup.img.gz.* | gzip -dc | dd of=/dev/hda1
- Cat recombines contents of the compressed and split image files
to
stdout, in order.
- Results are piped through gzip for decompression.
- And are then written to the first partition of the hard drive
with dd.
Stewart Robertson wrote:
Thanks for the analogy Richard.
Thankfully I was using a Live CD so in theory no robots managed to get
to the town and start re-building while thinking it was available space
which is why I have my fingers and toes crossed. I am however
beginning to accept that the phonebook is long gone.
I purchased a 1TB external HD and mounted it while using System Rescue
CD but it would only mount read only because it was formatted as NTFS.
I connected it up to Linux Mint and used GParted to format it as FAT 32
then remounted it on the laptop.
I want to create an image of the drive in case I cause further damage
so have been using dd but it keeps falling over at 4.3GB and reporting
'File too large'.
Various searches suggest that dd can be used to image whole drives but
some places suggest there is a file size limit for FAT32. If I
reformat the external as ext3 it should handle the larger file size but
can I then use it to store any files found by photorec before
transferring them back on to Windows (i.e. can Windows mount an ext3
formatted drive and access files on it)?
Stewart
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