How to copy hard disk image in Mandrake Linux?

[WSW]

I am new to Linux. A couple of months ago I installed Mandrake Linux on an old Dell PIII-600 computer. Mandrake Linux was very easy to install. It recognized all the hardware. Although I have a faster XP machine, I have been testing the Linux machine by using it for Internet and email for two months and very happy with it.

My Dell machine has two 3G hard drives. Mandrake Linux automatically partitioned both drives and installed /home on hdb. After installing more software into the machine I start to run out of space (1G left). I want to copy the image of hdb into another larger drive (I have an old 8G drive around) so that I can replace the existing hdb.

Is there a utility that I can copy the existing hdb image onto a new larger drive?

If I am successful with copying the image of hdb, I'll copy hda into a larger drive later.

[LocoCoyote]

The *nix standard for cloneing Hard drives is the dd command. I highly recommend the man page for detailed information. The two options you most probaly want are if and of. These specify the input file (if) and output file (of) to use.

An even easier way is to use partimage. This is as close to a ghost clone I have found. Go to http://www.partimage.org/ for detailed information.

If I may make a recommendation.......
get yourself a copy of Knoppix 3.4 or later. It is a live CD that has all these tools already installed and ready to use.

Good Luck!