Cloning Fresh Windows 7 -fsed HDD to Linux Server because having no external HDD or disks for the Backup

3

2

New lenovo x220 laptop with Windows 7 Pro with the below specs. I want to backup the disk to my server but I need to know the W7 fs, what is it?

$ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb Windows/
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
$ sudo mount -t ntf /dev/sdb Windows/
mount: unknown filesystem type 'ntf'
$ sudo mount -t nts /dev/sdb Windows/
mount: unknown filesystem type 'nts'

$ dmesg|tail
[   25.928832] sdb: p2 size 4779917312 extends beyond EOD, truncated
[   25.928867] sdb: p3 start 4804509696 is beyond EOD, truncated
[   25.929882] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 78142806 4096-byte logical blocks: (320 GB/298 GiB)
[   25.931382] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page present
[   25.931387] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[   25.931392] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI disk
[   27.960028] wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
[  174.655199] EXT3-fs (sdb): error: can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sdb.
[  174.657319] EXT2-fs (sdb): error: can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev sdb.
[  174.660818] EXT4-fs (sdb): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem

Perhaps related

  1. https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/11028/backup-whole-hard-disk-linux

  2. USB-SATA adapter -suggestion to connect the new HDD to my *ix laptop, https://superuser.com/a/387134/114739

  3. I am using these SATA to HDD 2.5" Adapters here and here, bought two pieces but both seems to work at least automounting works with them in Ubuntu and Windows.

To Luke's comment

$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7297 cylinders, total 117231408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000da58e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048   113055743    56526848   83  Linux
/dev/sda2       113057790   117229567     2085889    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       113057792   117229567     2085888   82  Linux swap / Solaris
Note: sector size is 4096 (not 512)

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders, total 78142806 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 4096 = 4096 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x181d6d22

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        2048     3074047    12288000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2         3074048   600563711  2389958656    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       600563712   625139711    98304000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Err to Lamar's comment

root@h:/# mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb2 /Windows/
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb2': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?
root@h:/# sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb2 /Windows/
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb2': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

$ sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb2 /Windows
NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/sdb2': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/sdb2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?

user114739

Posted 2012-03-06T19:11:27.783

Reputation:

Isn't /dev/sdb the entire disk, instead of /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdb2? What does fdisk -l output? – Canadian Luke – 2012-03-06T19:15:17.170

Yeah, the filesystem of the primary installation should be NTFS. – Shinrai – 2012-03-06T19:16:34.753

No, it hasn't changed. It will be changing with Windows 8 but ReFS is supposed to look exactly like NTFS to any API that's accessing it so everything that already reads NTFS should continue to read NTFS (although some low-level stuff might not work properly, obviously) – Shinrai – 2012-03-06T19:22:18.473

sudo mount -t ntfs /dev/sdb2 /windows slashes are important – Lamar B – 2012-03-06T19:25:07.470

In the question you never have a partition number after the drive letter. And in your comment you don't have the leading slash on windows. Both of these could be causing errors or a mistype could have easily occurred. – Lamar B – 2012-03-06T19:33:56.117

My bad I miss read the last part of you q. Have you tried mounting the disk without specifying the file system ( aka no -t ntfs ). – Lamar B – 2012-03-06T19:45:22.717

@LamarB: yes, I have but then it complains about the type like this root@h:/# mount /dev/sdb2 /Windows/ mount: you must specify the filesystem type. – None – 2012-03-06T19:47:10.077

adding -o debug may provide more information – Lamar B – 2012-03-06T19:53:30.587

@LamarB: Tried that but cannot find anything meaninful with the bebug flag. I opened a chat to the U site here addressing this issue -- perhaps I should ask more clarified q there. We now know that it is NTFS but not why this laplink mounting is not working.

– None – 2012-03-06T20:20:26.463

What does sudo file -s /dev/sdb2 show? – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' – 2012-03-06T20:39:03.353

@Gilles: $ sudo file -s /dev/sdb2 /dev/sdb2: data – None – 2012-03-06T21:02:18.330

@hhh You don't seem to have a filesystem there, at least not something Linux can recognized. Even if the partition table says “HPFS/NTFS/exFAT”, that might not reflect its content. Is it an encrypted disk? What is on this disk when you view it from Windows? – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' – 2012-03-06T21:06:12.150

@Gilles: ...and interestingly $ sudo file -s /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: x86 boot sector; partition 1: ID=0x7, active, starthead 32, startsector 2048, 3072000 sectors; partition 2: ID=0x7, starthead 89, startsector 3074048, 597489664 sectors; partition 3: ID=0x7, starthead 254, startsector 600563712, 24576000 sectors, code offset 0xe – None – 2012-03-06T21:06:37.607

@Gilles: When I plug this disk into X220, it boots as W7Pro and it is the genuine fresh OS just from box (ok I installed cygwin but that doees not count...)...perhaps I need to restart and try this again? – None – 2012-03-06T21:12:52.767

@hhh You have 3 partitions on that disk, presumably the OS is on one of the other two. The output of file -s /dev/sdb looks normal. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' – 2012-03-06T21:41:08.890

Answers

1

You can clone the whole drive to an image file with dd, you can even compress it to save space:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdb2 | bzip2 >~/old-disk.img.bz2

If you have pv, you can even get a progress bar:

sudo pv /dev/sdb2 | bzip2 >~/old-disk.img.bz2

Kevin

Posted 2012-03-06T19:11:27.783

Reputation: 1 019

+1 for the clever idea to use compression, hopefully saves time.. – None – 2012-03-06T20:46:10.920

It won't save time, it'll save storage! – deed02392 – 2012-03-07T09:07:26.250

...I think I need to plug in Rsync somewhere, it takes 30hours -- I have disk that is 60GB used but apparently about 300Gb free space (not sur but takes more than expected), researching the way to user rsync. – None – 2012-03-15T15:02:59.707

0

You want to use NTFS-3G, note 3G.

This should do the trick:

$ mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb2 /mnt/point

I regularly use this to mount my external hard drive with a Server 2008 R2 virtual hard disk on it under Debian Squeeze.

deed02392

Posted 2012-03-06T19:11:27.783

Reputation: 2 662

root@xfz:/# mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb2 /Windows/ NTFS signature is missing. Failed to mount '/dev/sdb2': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sdb2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around? -- well the same err. Even same err with sdb1, sdb --. – None – 2012-03-06T19:51:37.353

Try $ ntfs-3g /dev/sdb2 /mount_point ? – deed02392 – 2012-03-06T19:54:25.750

root@xfz:/# ntfs-3g /dev/sdb2 /Windows/ NTFS signature is missing. Failed to mount '/dev/sdb2': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sdb2' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way around?, I forget to mention -- I tried this one already -- the same err?! – None – 2012-03-06T20:07:17.763

0

The mount command should have /host and /Windows like this /host/Windows/. try it.

KH2000

Posted 2012-03-06T19:11:27.783

Reputation: 1

Asked: 2012-03-06T19:11:27.783

Viewed: 1 026 times

Active: 2012-03-13T16:05:02.323