Copying an entire hard disc

NoNeedForAChestWig

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Can anyone recommend anything to copy the entire contents of a hard disc "somewhere else"? I'm thinking of simply wiping the HD Windows installation my new computer came with and installing Linux, but it would be nice to be able to have that Windows installation backed up somewhere "just in case".
 
It depends on how you want to copy it, if you want to take an image of the disk and store it somewhere you can use Acronis, Norton Ghost, or even just DD (from a Linux LiveCD for instance). If you just want to copy the files then any file manager will do.
 
Can anyone recommend anything to copy the entire contents of a hard disc "somewhere else"? I'm thinking of simply wiping the HD Windows installation my new computer came with and installing Linux, but it would be nice to be able to have that Windows installation backed up somewhere "just in case".

Partition, copy, install linux on first partition. If you cannot partition in windows, usually the linux install will let you set up a ext4 or similar on your HDD to install.
 
It depends on how you want to copy it, if you want to take an image of the disk and store it somewhere you can use Acronis, Norton Ghost, or even just DD (from a Linux LiveCD for instance). If you just want to copy the files then any file manager will do.
I want a copy of the disc not the files. Thanks for the hints.

Partition, copy, install linux on first partition. If you cannot partition in windows, usually the linux install will let you set up a ext4 or similar on your HDD to install.
That appears to require modifying the disc first. That's one of the "just in case" scenarios I have in mind. So no, but thanks :)
 
I want a copy of the disc not the files.


Please explain, if you don't want to copy the files why copy the disc? is your goal a dual boot environment? If so your linux distro will help you do that with grub
 
I think his talking about taking a disc image, any of the above ways I mentioned would work for him.
 
As I understand it, he wants to have an image of the disk, which can restore the system exactly as it was before installing Linux in case it doesn't work out. The programs recommended by prizrak should work. Back when I could be bothered to make backups and images, I used G4U, but it requires some network storage.

If you'll oly use it once, Norton is probably better.
 
I use Acronis at home and at work for this purpose, it's a joy to use when coupled with good hardware.
 
As I understand it, he wants to have an image of the disk, which can restore the system exactly as it was before installing Linux in case it doesn't work out.

I think I would still dual boot. If he likes linux, he can just copy over his personal docs. If not he can just delete the linux partition and format it with ntfs. Also this way, if there is something he needs to do with windows it is still there.
 
Boot from a linux liveCD. Plug in an external HD. assuming your internal hd is sda and the external is sdb, do (from a root prompt) dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=1M (assuming you want to copy it to the second drive, deleting all existing content), or dd if=/dev/sda of=/some/file/on/the/second/drive.raw bs=1M (assuming you want to copy to the second drive, and you've mounted the second drive to a directory.
 
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