HelpPleas

I want to use the dd command from a Knoppix 5.1.1 CD to clone one SATA HDD to another, larger SATA HDD.
The drives are detected as sda and sdb.
How can I be sure which is which? I don't want to clone in the wrong direction and lose all data.
The HDD I want to clone is damaged and no partitions can be found. The target HDD contains no partitions.

ozar

Welcome to the forums!

The fdisk command should list the drives and their partitions when run from a terminal:

That's a lowercase letter L, and not a number one in the command.

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MikeTbob

If you are cloning a drive, I'd think the target drive would be empty and easy to identify or am I missing something here?

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HelpPleas

Thank you for your prompt replies.

The command fdisk -l is producing no output.

The target drive is empty, and when I attempt to open it I get this message:
Could not mount device. The reported error was: I could not determine the filesystem type, and none was specified

The problem is that I get the same message when I try to open the source drive. I know it contains data, but it has been corrupted.

I want to use TestDisk to recreate partitions, but it specifically says that the disk should be cloned first.

HelpPleas

OK, I figured it out.

I have to put: sudo fdisk -l

Then I get to see details of all drives, including the size in GBs. I still think I'd be stuck if I were cloning to a drive which was exactly the same size as my source drive.

Is there a definite rule, eg: the drive attached to SATA 1 is always sda, etc?