To copy the data back onto different disk To create the fast-compressed image (needless to say, you may want to skip the compression if you have sufficient space to store raw data (or are otherwise inclined to reduce CPU loading)Дd if=/path/to/image.gz | gunzip -c | dd bs=1M of=/dev/sdY

On a lubuntu live CD, used gparted to 'shrink' the disk to minimum possible size, leaving rest of the space unallocatedДd bs=1M count= if=/dev/sdX | gzip -c -fast| dd of=/path/to/image.gz Here's what I did when I ran into this situation: While /dev/zeroing the free-disk-space and use dd conv=sparse/ gz -c is possible, on huge disks with empty space running in 100s of GBs, /dev/zeroing is painfully slow - not to mention that as other answers noted, /dev/zeroing an SDD till EOF. Where -bs is the block size (it is easiest to use the unit that fdisk uses, but any unit will do so long as the count option is declared in these units), and count is the number of units we want to copy (note that we increment the count by 1 to capture the last block). The command would appear as follows: sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/your_directory/image_name.iso bs=8225280 count=526 We will do the latter using the count option in dd. In the 'End' column sda8 terminates at 525 (which is 525*16065*512 = ~4.3GB)Дd can do a lot of things, such as starting after an offset, or stopping after a specific number of blocks. In your case you have cylinders that are equal to 8225280 Bytes. The two things you should take note of are 1) the unit size, and 2) the 'End' column. In your case you were using fdisk so I will take that approach. as this device should be boot ready as soon as the copy is finished.ДЄny ideas? I previously had been using dd if=/dev/sda of=, but at that time, my master copy was on a 4gb flash ide. I need to make an image to store on our file server for use in flashing other devices we are manufacturing so I only want the used space (only about 4gb). Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary. Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Hard drive empty but shows used space