Can GRUB do the equivalent of 'dd'?

Can GRUB do the equivalent of 'dd'?

[Loving, Kent]

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.


Kent Loving

Kent Loving, 425-315-3043

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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> Grub-devel mailing list
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-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko