Hi,

I have a couple of old Compaq machines where the compaq bios / setup program is located on a hidden partition on the hard drive.
What is the best way to create an exact "backup" or "mirror" of this harddrive, including not only the data but also the hidden partitions.
And how could I restore such a "backup" or "mirror" onto another hard drive (with the same size or bigger size).

I know in Linux you can do a copy using dd and copy an entire medium (sd card for example) byte by byte into an image file, and then re-write that back onto another medium

Would that be an option for an old hard drive ?

My requirements :

1. Extract an image file from the hard drive containing everything (files / partition info / .....). That image file can then be stored somewhere (on my NAS).
2. Be able to restore that image file to the same hard drive (or perhaps another hard drive, probably larger in size).

I don't know to what extend the last one is possible given the differences in geometry of the source and target hard drive.
For example, if you have a source hard drive with Heads X , Cyiinders Y, Sectors Z, can you "trick" a computer to think that the target hardrive (perhaps with Heads A , Cylinders B and Sectors C) is in fact a hard drive with (Heads X , Cyiinders Y, Sectors Z) or is that not possible / not needed ?