[SOLVED] Urgent Question about Failing Hard Drive

[coffee]

I'm totally ignorant when it comes to Linux (and many other things) but I'm surprised it's not possible to mount an ISO and scan for/mount partitions embedded within it. I'm not being a smart aleck, just expressing my surprise (and betraying my ignorance).

Edit: Does this article help?

Thats probably where some of the negative posts come from when I post a suggestion <grin>. I cut my computer teeth on Unix. I have ran Linux from the beginning and then windows as an after thought. When I worked for large companies I had to work on DEC equipment, HPUX, and such because thats all there was really.

Linux is different than windows but I really enjoy it. However, You cannot create a multi partition iso and mount it. Thats where Phazed post came in about me. Of course, Reading the post and knowing that the UP is using linux I wanted to post a word of caution.

Thanks for your kind words,

coffee

 

[doubleohalex]

Lets say you have a drive with 2 partitions on it. You want to back up the drive or clone it to another drive. If your going to clone it to another drive you can use the command line: dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb - Assuming drive A is the drive you want to clone.

However, If you want to make a iso /img file of the drive and then mount it and pull files off of it then you have to do it a different way. Reason being is you cannot mount an image of multiple partitions

Example: dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/testdrive/myimagefile.iso

When you go to mount the image file to look at the files then linux will complain about not recognizing the filesystem.

Assuming /dev/sda1 is your boot partition and /dev/sda2 is your filesystem then you would want to do this:

dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/mnt/testdrive/myimagefile.iso

What I was trying to explain in my last post is do not make the mistake of making a full image of the drive and expect to mount it and pull files from it if you need to for some reason. As per just cloning to another drive the iso will work but not for mounting because you have more than one partition in the iso.

But you can... You need to calculate the offset of the target partition in the full image and mount it as a loop device using the correct offset.

I'm on mobile so its difficult to get specific but you would run "fdisk -l" against the DD image. Calculate the offset (starting block# * sector size) and run your mount command against the image with the offset specified.

Edit- I can write up a tutorial on this if there's interest.

 

[coffee]

But you can... You need to calculate the offset of the target partition in the full image and mount it as a loop device using the correct offset.

I'm on mobile so its difficult to get specific but you would run "fdisk -l" against the DD image. Calculate the offset (starting block# * sector size) and run your mount command against the image with the offset specified.

Edit- I can write up a tutorial on this if there's interest.

I am not going to get into it. Basic thought here is you cannot. However, Everything is possible in linux. However, For all practical purposes its not. Why go to all the trouble when you can just do a single partition backup. KIS.

 

[doubleohalex]

I am not going to get into it. Basic thought here is you cannot. However, Everything is possible in linux. However, For all practical purposes its not. Why go to all the trouble when you can just do a single partition backup. KIS.

It's really not "all that trouble", its just basic Linux commands and simple math. Bottom line, its entirely possible and very doable. I was just trying to point that out. Coming from a forensic background, I will always make a full disk image over a partition image when the choice is available.

Different strokes for different folks obviously.