Re: Can GRUB do the equivalent of 'dd'?

[Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko]

On 29.11.2011 08:09, Loving, Kent wrote:
> I was wondering if GRUB can ‘install’ an image using dd before it is booted.
>
> The image will be in file, previously created by the dd command, and stored in 
> a partition that is not the first partition. GRUB would have to execute an 
> equivalent of ‘dd’ to dump the image from the file to the first partition and 
> then boot it. To keep this from being too easy, the image is windows XP, and 
> the image file is on an NTFS partition.
>
> The goal is to allow a ‘snapshot’ of a working OS to be saved and then allow a 
> return to that snapshot later.
This is currently not implemented other than in my local experiments. In 
your case you're better off booting a small GNU/Linux to do the 
operations. GRUB is not designed to handle writing a whole partition. 
While it is able to do so (otherwise it would be a bug), it doesn't use 
some of available acceleration so GNU/Linux is faster on writing data. 
The overhead of booting GNU/Linux is small compared to the time needed 
to copy over the image.
Note: I haven't done any benchmarks so this isn't confirmed. but 
probably is the case
> Kent Loving
>
> Kent Loving, 425-315-3043
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--
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko