Image NTFS Boot disk

Several linux tools allow imaging and cloning of NTFS boot disks

Refer to --help and man files where necessary.

NTFSResize can be used to shrink an NTFS paritition to it's consumed space prior to imaging

//show how much space is consumed

ntfsresize --info /dev/sdb1

//resize the partition

ntfsresive -s -80G /dev/sdb1

DD provides a reliable method of creating NTFS disk image files that can be restored and booted. 

//backup the partition table and MBR boot sector

dd if=/dev/sdb of=ntfs-mbr.dd bs=512 count=63

dd if=/dev/sdb1 of=ntfs-boot-part.dd bd=4M status=progress

The resulting files may be zipped to conserve space.

The image needs to be restored to hardware (HDD or SSD) at least as large as the source parition

//restore the partition table, MBR and bootsector

dd if=ntfs-mbr.dd of=/dev/sdb

//rescan the partition table

blockdev --rereadpt /dev/sdb

//restore the partition image to the new sparse partition

dd if=ntfs-boot-part.dd of=/dev/sdb1 bs=4M status=progress

It is recommended to install the restored disk to a Windows PC

as an additional disk and run chkdsk /f D:

The restored disk should now be ready to be used as a boot device.

Other useful tools

ddrescue /dev/sdb /imgage.dd /mapfile.map

Can be used to recover an NTFS partition in poor condition.

The image is saved in standard dd raw format and can be mounted with losetup

kpartx -a /imagefile.dd

KPartX automatically creates lopback devices from a disk or partition image

ntfsclone --save-image /image-file.img /dev/sdb1

NTFS Clone reads only the occupied blocks from the partition.

However the image is saved to a non-standard image and can only be restored with ntfsclone --restore.

NTFS Clone can only save whole partitions and can not be used to save the entire disk device e.g. /dev/sdb