Make an exact duplicate of a NTFS filesystem partition under Linux

Q. How do I make an exact duplicate of a partition using Linux? I have brought a new hard disk and I would like make an exact duplicate of a NTFS filesystem located at /dev/hda1 to /dev/hdb1.

A. You can copy a file, converting and formatting using a dd command. Use same tool to make an exact copy of NTFS filesystem partition under Linux.

First make sure you have created /dev/hdb1 using Linux fdisk program. /dev/hdb1 partitions must be the exact same size of /dev/hda1 so that you create a direct raw copy of source.

Use fdisk -l command to view current /dev/hda1 partition size (cylinders).
# fdisk -l

Now use dd command as follows:
# dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdb1

Posted by: Vivek Gite

The author is the creator of nixCraft and a seasoned sysadmin, DevOps engineer, and a trainer for the Linux operating system/Unix shell scripting. Get the latest tutorials on SysAdmin, Linux/Unix and open source topics via RSS/XML feed or weekly email newsletter.

1 comment

Remember that the first sector in an NTFS partition has a copy of the “special hidden sectors” – so if you’re thinking os “starting” your copied partition on a different cylinder to the original, you’ll need to modify this too.