Creating a Disk Image on Linux Using DD

Things You Will Need

Creating An Image

  1. Insert the SD card or USB flash drive to make an image of
  2. Run the following commands in a terminal window:
    # list out disks
    sudo fdisk -l
    # run the following to create a .img, replace sdb with the correct source disk
    sudo dd if=/dev/sdb of=~/flashstorage.img status=progress
    # run the following to create a compressed img, replace sdb with the correct source disk
    sudo dd if=/dev/sdb status=progress | gzip -c >~/flashstorage.img.gz

Restoring An Image

  1. Insert the SD card or USB flash drive to make an image of
  2. Run the following commands in a terminal window:
    # list out disks
    sudo fdisk -l
    # run the following to restore an .img to the target device
    # replace sdb with the correct source disk
    # MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THE OUTPUT TARGET IS CORRECT
    # OR YOU COULD POTENTIAL DAMAGE YOUR OS
    # restore img
    sudo dd if=~/flashstorage.img of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress
    # restore gzipped img
    gunzip -c ~/flashstorage.img.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress