Duplicating a diskette

You can copy the contents of a source diskette to a destination diskette using the dd(1M) command. You can choose either a character or block device, but the same device must be used for the entire procedure.

1. If you have only a single diskette drive, copy the data on the source diskette to a temporary file on the hard disk in the temporary file space area. Enter
   
   dd if=special_file of=/tmp/foo bs=36b

   where special_file is the path to a diskette device (such as /dev/rdsk/f0t).

2. Then replace the source diskette with a formatted destination diskette, and copy the temporary file to the destination diskette. Enter
   
   dd if=/tmp/foo of=special_file bs=36b

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   NOTE: While you can use any filesystem for temporary file space, it is recommended that you use space in either /tmp or /var/tmp since files in these two directories are automatically deleted during the transition to system state 2 (multi-user state). Make sure there is enough room in the filesystem to hold the diskette image.

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   With multiple diskette drives, the source data can be copied directly to the destination disk (both diskettes must have the same density, 1.44 MB, 1.2 MB, etc.).
   
   dd if=special_file_1 of=special_file_2 bs=36b

   For example:
   
   dd if=/dev/rdsk/f0t of=/dev/rdsk/f1t bs=36b