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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!metro!metro!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!netcom.com!kxr From: kxr@netcom.com (Keith Rich) Subject: Read/Write CDROM strategy Message-ID: <kxrE02F6o.CGu@netcom.com> Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 01:37:36 GMT Lines: 26 Sender: kxr@netcom.netcom.com I think I could use a Read/Write CDROM to do backup, but I'm not sure about the strategy to use. I think the write has to happen all at once, so I think I want to dd from a disk image to the raw device. I imagine having a disk image the same size as the CDROM, and probably on a scratch disk. So, it would work like this. put the stuff to be backed up on the scratch disk dd if=/dev/raw_disk of=/dev/raw_cdrom The intent here is to end up with a CDROM that can be mounted and looked at directly rather than having to restore it to disk first. Now come the hard questions. Do I copy the partition stuff as well as the filesystem? Can I backup both dos and unix stuff unto the same CDROM? Can I end up with a CDROM that I can boot from? What about bad blocks? Can I get bad block info off the CDROM first? Are there any limits that will preclude the whole idea? Has anybody tried this yet? What hardware issues are relevant (e.g.: ide versus scsi)? Comments? Keith Rich (kxr@netcom.com)