dd.exe Tutorial | Cloning or creating a image using dd.exe

DD is a command line tool which is used to create a clone or image of any drive. there are many tools which can achieve any feet. There are many GUI versions available on the internet, most of them are commercial tools. Free Cloning tools are available as well. FTK imager is one of the best GUI tool for cloning a drive or to create an image. FTK imager is used for data acquisition and for capturing RAM Dump. Cloning a Drive or a partition is very easy with FTK Imager. dd.exe is the back-end process of FTK Imager. 

dd is a command-line utility for Unix and Unix-like operating systems whose primary purpose is to convert and copy files. On Unix, device drivers for hardware (such as hard disk drives) and special device files (such as /dev/zero and /dev/random) appear in the file system just like normal files; dd can also read and/or write from/to these files, provided that function is implemented in their respective driver. As a result, dd can be used for tasks such as backing up the boot sector of a hard drive and obtaining a fixed amount of random data.

Requirements:

1)   Dd.exe à Download it Here

2)   Drive to clone or to create a image of. 

 
How to Clone or Create a Image of a drive using DD.exe 

1)  Go to the location in which dd.exe is located and open cmd in that location by typing “cmd” in address bar 

 DD.exe command Line tool

2) Type the command “dd --list” to view the list of drives available in the system.

System volume id is required to Create an Image or Clone a drive. “dd –list” provides the list of drives available 

List of all available drives in the system

  3)  Enter the command 
 

      dd if= “Volume ID” of = “output location” bs=1M

       If = Input File; of = Output File; bs= Bit size; 

command to start cloning process

 4) The Process for creating a Clone of the drive starts

 Cloing process starts

5) After sometime cloning process ends and the file is saved in the specified location.

    Conclusion: 

   That's how drives/ flash drives/ hard disk's or any files are cloned without any loss of data. This is the most widely used free tool for collecting evidence at the crime scene (cloning the hard disk). So, this can be used to backup your drives as well.