Cloning with the dd command - possible bad sectors problem

[kbank]

To make a full backup I run a live Knoppix DVD and clone the computer's HDD to an external HDD using the dd command.

Is there a possible problem with the source being copied onto bad sectors on the destination disk? If so is there a way to prevent this from happening?

A typical dd command I use looks like:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror.

Is this the recommended command for cloning to a disk of equal size?

Thank you for the help.
Ken Bank

[Irithori]

Is there a possible problem with the source being copied onto bad sectors on the destination disk?

Yes.

If so is there a way to prevent this from happening?

Replace the disk.


The command depends on the use case.
If you want to preserve a snapshot of the original disk,
then partimage or partclone might be of interest.
Both copy only used blocks and can compress the image, so that it takes less space.