I'd use the clonezilla live cd for the back-up. It will make an image only as large as the the amount of space allocated in the filesystem. It can back up to other drives, including USB drives and it can back up to other computers via ssh. If you're not doing forensics, no need to make images with dd IMHO. My $0.02. -Rob Sent from my iPhone On Apr 29, 2012, at 8:17 AM, gregrwm <tclug1 at whitleymott.net> wrote: > my friend reid has had enough registry trouble with his XP laptop that > he is finally coming to me wanting help to install linux. now i'm the > sort who installs precise from the core tar.gz (why bother buy & burn > blanks? why annoy myself with installers?), so i'm thinking grab > whatever live CD may be lying around, backup XP with dd > if=partition|ssh dd, shrink that XP partition, plunk in precise core, > apt-get willy nilly, including virtualbox for his must-have XP > programs. but wait, i dunno that just any live CD can be relied upon > to shrink ntfs. this is where i'd like to hear your experiences. if > we must burn something, of course there are a million answers, but in > your opinion, what's best? i tend to be attracted to LTS knowing i > won't be forced to install again all too soon, but i feel the tempting > pull of the notion that mint may be more suited to an inveterate > windoze user, more likely to leave him happy than precise. and > there's the question of that dd backup, are there approaches you'd say > are quicker or smarter (no handy external disc here)? as for > partitioning, i'm always in favor of leaving the original in place > until the new has actually proven to obviate it. given that he's > already filled 35g of the 60g disc leaving 25g to play with, how much > would you throw to swap? which installers or others would you certify > as reliable for shrinking ntfs? is it best to use winders defrag > first? > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list