From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from list by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.71) id 1RVJIM-0002gW-19 for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:44:06 -0500 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:59426) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RVJIJ-0002gJ-AX for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:44:04 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RVJIH-0004eG-V3 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:44:03 -0500 Received: from mail-ee0-f41.google.com ([74.125.83.41]:60374) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RVJIH-0004eC-QY for grub-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:44:01 -0500 Received: by eekc14 with SMTP id c14so155682eek.0 for ; Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:44:00 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=SSuOVoVSciLfClzNLAedJnab0GEaKef6KuvOPoRbcKs=; b=k2BTe1AF29WLrgh1V5+SlLBqvrxYrn8unlBgDm5QqTMEj8iNDOLkt7qh3f7G7b8MBb Z3dYghTnyK1erh1vPx1W1OCCzYBy9PHURMkfa1/Jt/5aUMlsHwSfgknBmwte+KIEpvUq 1l/yfHWwWNI/e8j1Hptr/PLF81KKyXsrLoWiE= Received: by 10.180.73.107 with SMTP id k11mr48663357wiv.50.1322556240443; Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:44:00 -0800 (PST) Received: from debian.x201.phnet (1-234.197-178.cust.bluewin.ch. [178.197.234.1]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id ep13sm42071114wbb.8.2011.11.29.00.43.58 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:43:58 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4ED49B4A.7010904@gmail.com> Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:43:54 +0100 From: =?UTF-8?B?VmxhZGltaXIgJ8+GLWNvZGVyL3BoY29kZXInIFNlcmJpbmVua28=?= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.2.24) Gecko/20111114 Icedove/3.1.16 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: The development of GNU GRUB Subject: Re: Can GRUB do the equivalent of 'dd'? References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 74.125.83.41 X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:44:04 -0000 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 > _______________________________________________ > Grub-devel mailing list > Grub-devel@gnu.org > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/grub-devel -- Regards Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko