Making a Windows disk a file on Linux

Michael ODonnell michael.odonnell at comcast.net
Fri Sep 10 11:49:01 EDT 2004


Unless it's vitally important to preserve some of the
obscure Windows-specific file attributes, tar seems
like a fine solution.

Otherwise, if I were doing this I think I'd create
a partition that's just large enough to hold the
collection of files in question, initialize that raw
partition with some repetititve pattern (read: highly
compressible, like all zeroes) then initialize that
partition with a Windows filesystem, then use Windows
to copy all files of interest to that partition,
then dd that partition image into Linux file,
then compress that image file, but noting whether
any useful compression was achieved.  If no useful
compression I'd access it via straight loopback mount,
else compressed loopback mount.

BTW, somebody mentioned "logical block addressing" but
note that LBA doesn't come into play at this level.
 



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