Open Source Disk Image Utility

[Jackal]

Anyone know of a "good" disk image utility that can be used via an ISO CD, and can "easily" connect to a windows network share for image up/download?

I've tried:

PING - keeps failing to connect to the share, and locks my account out.

g4u - no ftp server available.

The box I'm trying to image is a Dell SC1430, with a raid 1 setup - Acronis cannot see the drive AND use networking at the same time, I don't have access to Ghost.

[Ned Slider]

Are PartImage and PING the same thing?? If not, it looks worth a try (maybe the bug in PING is fixed in this?).

But no, I've not tried any

[Ryan]

I am currently using Clonezilla here - works pretty good but I dont THINK it has an FTP client.

One that DOES have an FTP client is G4L - based around the g4u you mentioned.

[StompinRound]

not open source but free,

I use BartPE and DriveImage XML, it will do what you ask with the right plugins for ftp or networking

[Jackal]

thanks everyone, PING and PartImage are 1 and the same (although PartImage looks to have a nicer interface), I haven't tried Clonezilla, but will look into it.

I wanted to avoid BPE, but it may be my best solution, I'm just to lazy for d/l installing the plugins.

[Spankin Partier]

If you can mount the SMB share using SAMBA off of a Knoppix CD (or any other live Linux CD) you can use dd. Its one of the old staples that comes with pretty much any Linux Distro out there. Personally I find command line commands much easier then learning an application, but that's just me.

Your steps to back this up would be to 1. Mount the Windows share. 2. Run dd:

dd -if=/dev/hda1 -of=/mnt/windowshare/backup.img

or better yet, if you want your output to be compressed alter the above line to be this:

dd -if=/dev/hda1 | gzip -9 > /mnt/windowshare/backup.img

The only question is how hard is it to connect to a Windows share using Knoppix. I

[Ned Slider]

The only question is how hard is it to connect to a Windows share using Knoppix. I

It's easy to connect to SMB shares in knoppix. Just need to make sure you connect in read/write - the default is read only. R.click on the device on the desktop and there's an option to mount it read/write.

[Jackal]

ah, and a noob quandry from me. The config is ALL windows, there are no Linux servers/boxes.

Just PE booting to a live cd, so is it Samba? If so what is running Samba?

connecting the share from another windows box is nothing just Start-->Run

\\Server\rootshare\share_name --> enter and it opens in another window.

[Ned Slider]

If it's all Windows, then Windows uses the SMB protocol for file shares. Samba is the *nix port of the SMB protocol and to connect to a Windows share *nix uses the SMB Client package (if you were serving shares for Windows clients from a *nix server then that would be the Samba Server package).

Booting from a *nix LiveCD it is all just transparent

Is that what you meant?

[Jackal]

yes I think so, I don't know why PING won't connect to the share then ?

It appears to be communicating with AD though, hence my account lockout?

[Jackal]

Well, I've created a BartPE, with the DriveImage XML Plugin, added both, drivers for the NIC, and for the storage controller, NIC is pulling DHCP, however I still cannot see drive c: ?

[Jackal]

weeeeeee, well we are making progress, the image is copying to the network now, had to integrate Dell SAS drivers, and broadcom gigabit into the PE ISO file.

DriveImage XML's website says that the image can't be loaded onto an array...I hope they're wrong.

[Jackal]

I did have to d/l a linux utility to partition the HDD, the tool I used is d/l'able in an .exe form, I'm going to try and incorporate it into my BartPE disk.

That aside, everything worked like a charm.

Thanks everyone!!!