[plug] Partition sizes

[Colin Rothnie]

	> I have no idea how it was done, the folks at the shop copied it
over. I
	> think they just did a low level copy.

It depends somewhat on the "low level copy".  If the copy was done on the
raw device ie "dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb" then the whole disk is copied
across: partition table, MBR, partitions etc exactly as the first disk is
set up ("ghosting").

I recently had a lot of luck doing this with identical 13 Gb disks (I doubt
it would work on non-identical disks).  The process is  is fairly slow (I
think it would have taken about 2 - 3 hours if I had let it run).  As it
was, I pulled the plug on the copy after about an hour then used "fips 2.0"
to redefine the end of the Win98 partition at 6 Gb.  I was subsequently able
to install Linux without problems on the remaining area.    Someone more
knowledgable than myself may be able to explain how to best use the "buffer
size" setting in dd to optimise speed.

If it weren't for the MS Windows Licence key it would be a much easier way
of installing that operating system onto a hard disk because you don't need
to answer any questions, just let it run.  I guess the only problem might be
that it isn't doing a proper format and therefore doesn't get the
opportunity to mark any bad sectors.  I have found no problems with the
image that I made anyway.

Cheers
Colin Rothnie