Linux Mint: Disk image
From fit-PC wiki
Instructions for disk image preparation:
- Obtain Linux workstation PC. Any recent Linux distribution is ok
- Open the terminal and print current partitions
$ cat /proc/partitions
- Attach the disk you are going to clone to the workstation PC with some suitable adapter (for example M.2 SATA SSD to USB 3.0 adapter)
- Print detected partitions again
$ cat /proc/partitions ... 8 80 30932992 sdf 8 81 2929664 sdf1 8 82 97280 sdf2 8 83 97280 sdf3 8 84 488448 sdf4
- In the example above attached disk named /dev/sdf and it has 4 partitions: /dev/sdf1, /dev/sdf2, /dev/sdf3, /dev/sdf4
- We will use the name /dev/sdf in this guide, it can be different in your case
- Open the terminal and save disk layout using fdisk and blkid tools:
$ echo -e "O\nfdisk.layout\nq\n" | sudo fdisk /dev/sdf # review fdisk.layout file $ cat fdisk.layout label: dos label-id: 0x5a0ae517 device: /dev/sdf unit: sectors /dev/sdf1 : start= 2048, size= 5859328, type=83 /dev/sdf2 : start= 5861376, size= 194560, type=ef /dev/sdf3 : start= 6055936, size= 194560, type=4 /dev/sdf4 : start= 6250496, size= 976896, type=83 $ sudo blkid /dev/sdf* -s UUID -s TYPE > blkid.layout # review blkid.layout file $ cat blkid.layout /dev/sdf1: UUID="34b4205b-d2b9-4e50-9ea1-c559fdab97d3" TYPE="ext4" /dev/sdf2: UUID="52DE-F66C" TYPE="vfat" /dev/sdf4: UUID="025c89f7-eb46-424b-883b-23f7f0771b27" TYPE="ext4"
- Ensure disk partitions are unmounted (on some systems they can be mounted automatically)
$ sudo umount /dev/sdf*
- Save filesystem from each disk partition using partclone tool and compress using lz4 tool.
Partclone tool supports ext2/3/4, ntfs, fat and many other filesystem types, you can clone disks with Linux or Windows installations Install required cloning software: "liblz4-tool" and "partclone"
# for distributions based on Ubuntu/Debian $ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install liblz4-tool partclone
In the example above according to blkid.layout:
/dev/sdf1 and /dev/sdf3 have "ext4" filesystem /dev/sdf2 has "vfat" filesystem /dev/sdf3 has no filesystem
According to the example need to save 3 partitions:
$ sudo partclone.ext4 -c -s /dev/sdf1 | lz4 > part1.ext4.partclone.lz4 $ sudo partclone.vfat -c -s /dev/sdf2 | lz4 > part2.vfat.partclone.lz4 $ sudo partclone.ext4 -c -s /dev/sdf4 | lz4 > part4.ext4.partclone.lz4
- Calculate md5 for files you've prepared
$ md5sum *.layout part*.partclone.lz4 > md5
- Send us the fdisk.layout, blkid.layout, part*.partclone.lz4 files and the md5 file