Need to clone a raw hard disc- no formatting

[frednurk]

Can anyone suggest some free disc cloning software to clone an old quantum fireball. The disc is a speshal for an arcade game that does not use a conventional operating system or format on the disc. The thing works in machine code, and reads data in raw format straight off the disc. I believe that a late version NSW Ghost should do the job, however my systemworks CD has damage on just one particular file. You guessed it- right in the middle of Ghost. Any helpfull hints greatly appreciated.

[dimeslime]

Bootit-NG:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

Its a 30 day trial i think, but i've written the disk image to cd and it has never expired on me.

[frednurk]

Thanks Dimeslime, but bootit will not do the job. The trouble is there is no FAT on this disc- just raw data. The machine works by driving the hard disc directly (IE go to track #x) and just processes the data in a bloody great stream at 100 Megs a second or so. I need a program to both drive the disc, and dump the data straight onto another identical disc in exactly the same place. I hope this makes sense.

[dimeslime]

surely theres a partition table though? and then bootit should dump the partition no matter what the file system.

failing that, you could do it with dd under linux and possibly avoid any partition entries. I assume something like:
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb
would work

[jambo]

Try This (ed2k://|file|Norton_ghost_2003_Bootable_DOS.exe|1167848|8 d4795117237b91f5b7cf88d9d16958f|/)

[sagit]

or use linux's dd command :p

[frednurk]

Sorry team- I been busy. Will get back to it soon I hope and hopefully have some good news.
Jambo- The link looks like what I need but it doesn't work?

[frednurk]

:( The disc is screwed. Got a trial copy of Nortons Ghost server and imaged away, but kept getting bad sectors. Pulled it apart in the end and found the heads are stuffed and have seriously damaged the platters. Oh well, time to get out the wallet. The only thing left to try is transplanting the platters one day when I have nothing better to do. Can't do any harm. Thanks to all for your assistance.

[dogwomble]

I wouldn't be transplanting the platters now that you've opened the drive. The problem is dust: even the smallest of small amount of dust will cause a hard drive crash the second you plug it in after the transplant.

May I repeat the work BACKUP repeatedly so people get the idea?

I suspect the fucked heads would also explain the lpartitioning probs or whatever ones you had and why it is raw data.

[frednurk]

I was aware of the need for absolute cleanliness when attempting a transplant. The disc is proprietory, and was purposely filled with raw data only. It looks like an upgrade is available from the manufacturer though. Back-up of proprietory data from these guys is forbidden. Penalties are severe, and not worth the risk for a small company. The game itself is past its useby date, and so it really is no great loss. Still though, I like a challenge :)

[dogwomble]

They don't allow backup? That sucks! I mean, every license agreement I have read has stated that you are allowed to make backups, and I'm sure that if you got the ACCC involved they'd have something to say too because as I understand it you are legally entitled to make a backup of a piece of software or data in case the original is damaged (but if someone knows better, please correct me).

[frednurk]

No backup is correct. Think Arcade hardware, not anything you can buy from a computer retailer. :(