Can I clone 2 HDDs to a single one if they fit in size?

1

I have 2 o.s. (debian and windows 7) and I use both. They are stored on SSDs, so rather small in size (125GB/80GB), can I clone both of them on a single hdd (like in two different partitions) so that if one of my ssd is faulty, I just buy a new one, restore the o.s. from one of the 2 hdd partitions, plug the new ssd and keep working?

If yes, which software should I use? Possibly an open source/free one.

Fire-Dragon-DoL

Posted 2013-06-20T01:39:23.493

Reputation: 631

Answers

2

If you simply want to back up the partitions, you can use Clonezilla or even dd from a Linux LiveCD/USB to create images of the same.

Karan

Posted 2013-06-20T01:39:23.493

Reputation: 51 857

Seems resonable, I would like to know if I can simply restore them from that HDD to a new one (if something fails), or will I need to do something to partitions to enable booting and let o.s. working. – Fire-Dragon-DoL – 2013-06-20T02:32:45.713

You can try backing up the MBR to a file like so: dd if=/dev/hda of=/home/hda.boot.mbr bs=512 count=1, and restore using: dd if=/mnt/hda1/home/hda.boot.mbr of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 (adjust source/destination as per requirements obviously). However it might be better (and simpler) to just reinstall Grub from any Linux LiveCD/USB or better still use Boot-Repair for Linux and Startup Repair from the Windows DVD for Win7.

– Karan – 2013-06-20T02:35:42.640

Asked: 2013-06-20T01:39:23.493

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Active: 2013-06-20T01:46:21.730