Overview
The dd command is a useful tool for copying one entire hard drive to another. This can be helpful if you want to move your entire computer system to a new hard drive. The trick is making sure you know which drive you are copying from and which drive you are copying to. There is no recovering your data if you accidentally copy an empty drive to your system drive. It will overwrite all your information.
Step by Step Process
Here are some commands and tools that you will want to use:
- df -h (this will show you your drives and the disk free space)
- sudo apt-get install smartmontools (install smartctl)
- sudo apt-get install gparted (install GParted)
- sudo smartctl –all /dev/sda
- sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc (important: sdb and sdc are examples you will need to know what your specific drives are
Video Tutorial
Here is a tutorial demonstrating the process:
