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I am using kubuntu 10.04 and now I want to install Mac on my PC.

I have my data scattered in over 200 Gb and I want take a backup such that with one command all my data is saved into a single file.

Then if my MAC installation fails then just format my hard drive and restore the system in its original form.

I know about "dd" but I am skeptic about it .

Is it possible?

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Don't be skeptic about dd, it is rock solid and proven ;) – Tim Jun 8 '12 at 13:02
dd is NOT a backup utility; it's a low level debugging swiss army knife. – psusi Jun 8 '12 at 23:15

3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Adding to Orion's answer, I would also throw Clonezilla in to the mix. A FOSS alternative to Ghost and Acronis.

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up vote 2 down vote

I think what you're looking for is 3rd party image backup and restoration software, like Acronis TrueImage or Norton Ghost. Both can take both partition and whole image backups, which I think is what you're looking for.

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up vote 1 down vote

dd certainly works.

You can also use tar (this will compress the tar file, but will take a bit of time but will save space):

tar cvjpf <filename>.tar.bz2 <list of files and directroies>
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