Creating clone of a HDD including boot partition

[Warren Block]

On Wed, 15 Dec 2010, Polytropon wrote:

> On Wed, 15 Dec 2010 02:00:15 -0600 (CST), Robert Bonomi <bonomi at mail.r-bonomi.com> wrote:
>>> What would be your suggested method to achieve this goal.
>>
>> *IF* the disks are the same size/geometry, then simply dd(1) from one raw
>> device to the other.

Also works if the target disk is larger than the source.  Of course some 
unused space will be left at the end of the target disk.

> And if it's not, use the recommended standard transfer
> method of dump + restore. Before you can do so, run a
> script (e. g. from a live system CD) to perform the
> slicing and partitioning according to your needs
> (fdisk, disklabel/bsdlabel, newfs, tunefs, or geom
> tools, or zfs tools).

This method will (hopefully) recreate the MBR or GPT, but not copy it. 
Which is probably fine, but just mentioned in light of the Subject.

"Backup Options For FreeBSD" is an article I wrote not too long ago 
comparing the use of dump/restore, dd, and Clonezilla:

http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/backup.html