Re: [Bug-ddrescue] partition size for ddrescue direct to device

[Ariel]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005, Peter wrote:

> is this going to produce an unusable volume because the target is not the 
> same size as the source? i have not stopped the progress and tried to mount 
> it yet.

If the volume is ext then you'll have no problem. ext stores the actual 
size of the fs in the superblock. (Although if the superblock is messed up 
bad things can happen - but in that case you'll have worse problems. And 
you might be able to use a backup superblock.)

If it's other filesystems, then they might not mount, but the data is not 
useless - it's just at the beginning of the volume that's all.

Just figure out the size of the old volume, and copy that much data from 
the new volume once ddrescue is done. You might even have some success 
_CAREFULLY_ changing the partition table to shrink the partition slightly 
to match. (But that's a risky thing to do.)

Use blockdev to get the size of the old volume.

        -Ariel