Arch Linux

maz20

Member

Registered: 2011-02-05

Posts: 2

Backup "Factory Image" partition on Dell Inspiron 1525

Hi, I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 that came with Windows Vista but would like to install Arch Linux on this computer.
It has a "factory image" partition on the harddrive I used before to reinstall Windows Vista,
but installing linux might overwrite this partition and make Windows Vista un-reinstallable.

Can such a "factory image" partition be backed up on a CD somehow? (like an iso, in case I might have to reinstall Windows)

Last edited by maz20 (2011-04-13 08:27:17)

stqn

Member

Registered: 2010-03-19

Posts: 1,191

Website

Re: Backup "Factory Image" partition on Dell Inspiron 1525

Sure. Just use dd, or maybe ntfsclone if it's an NTFS partition.

Use "sudo fdisk -l" to find the device identifier of the partition (something like "/dev/sda1").

Then "sudo dd if=/dev/sda1 of=factory_image bs=1M" will copy the partition contents into the file "factory_image".

Be careful with dd, if you write "of=/dev/sda1", it will overwrite that partition without any confirmation request.

You might want to also backup the boot sector (first 512 bytes of the disk) to keep the original boot loader: "sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=boot_sector bs=512 count=1".

kveras

Member

From: Uppsala, Sweden

Registered: 2011-03-22

Posts: 54

Re: Backup "Factory Image" partition on Dell Inspiron 1525

As I suggested in the other thread. If you want to be absolutely sure not to screw anything up, just buy another drive. 40-80gb ssd:s are pretty cheap these days and the performance boost is significant!