Backing up and erasing media, disks, and partitions with DD

In this section, we are going to discuss the dd command. The dd command stands for data duplicator. It is mainly used for converting and copying files. In this section, we are going to learn about backing up and erasing a media file.

Getting ready

Besides having a terminal open, we need to make sure you have the necessary files present in the current directory to take backups, to make copies, and similar tasks.

How to do it...

The dd command is mainly used for converting and copying files. The if parameter stands for input-file and is a source. of stands for output-file and is a source where we want to paste data.

1. Run the following command to copy the contents of one file to another:

# create a file 01.txt and add some content in that file.
# create another file 02.txt and add some content in that file.
$ dd if=/home/student/work/01.txt of=/home/student/work/02.txt bs=512 count=1

2. Run the following command to take a backup of the partition...