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if i write this command in linux "dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sda2" it will copy the whole /dev/sda1 partition bit by bit to /dev/sda2 ......is there any way in WINDOWS not in linux that i can just only copy the contents of one partition and also the MBR to another partition not the whole partition....Why MBR bcoz i want to take a boot from the copied partition and that is only possible if there is MBR in the copied partition.....

Oliver Salzburg
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user35319
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3 Answers3

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First, /dev/sda is not a partition: it is a whole disk. Partitions are /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2 … as the disk is partitioned. So, supposing that you want to copy /dev/sda1 to /dev/sda2, you have to:

Mount the partitions (create the directories first):

mkdir /mnt/sda1 /mnt/sdb1
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdb1

Then copy the content of the first partition to the second.

cp -a -x /mnt/sda1 /mnt/sdb1

You can then unmount the partitions and delete the mount-place directories.

umount /mnt/sda1
umount /mnt/sdb1
rm -r /mnt/sda1 /mnt/sdb1
Didier Trosset
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Clonezilla will do this

Shevek
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I think I managed to do that (not sure about the MBR though, but the doc says it « creates identical bootable partitions », so I guess so) with DrvClonerXP : it quiclky copies the exact content of a partition to an existing partition. I haven't made tests, but since (as I understand) it copies byte-for-byte rather than file-by-file, it must be much faster than Robocopy or similar tools, especially when there are many small files.

Gabriel
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