Acquiring an Image from Linux OS - Case Study Example

Different methods have been developed to cater to the different operating systems and large file sizes including Smartsector for windows and Linux dd for the Linux operating system which can operate in both files by-file and sector-by-sector modes of imaging hence increasing the speed of fragmentation. These new technologies are also able to image from more than a single storage device including hard drives, removable media devices, and tapes.

To acquire an image disk from a Linux operating system, various methods of acquiring images have been developed including Safeback version 2.0 technique which can acquire images on various operating systems on the IDE drives of computers using the sector-by-sector method; the snapback DataArrest technique which acquires images on SCSI drives of computers using the sector by sector method and DIBS RAID technique which performs optical acquisition of images on both the SCSI drive and the IDE drive of the computer using both the sector by sector and the file by file methods. These methods hold a major strength in the fact that they can handle large amounts of data, unlike traditional methods.

However, the most appropriate tool to use is the Linux dd version 7.0. This tool acquires images from the hard drive of the computer. External storage devices such as removable disks, tapes, flash drives, and compact disks can also be used with this tool to perform imaging in a Linux environment. Linux dd version 7.0 can perform image verification by the AMD5 checksum verification method [2]. This tool shows high levels of strength in computing complexity and it is very good in detection modification. The probability of program collision is very low. Imaging is then done on the SCSI drive of the computer unlike other methods of imaging that perform imaging in the IDE drive. Copying of data into the hard drive is normally done using both modes of imaging which are sector by sector and file by file. This tool can eliminate any form of a slowdown in imaging and it is not affected by fragmentation of the files in the hard drive of the computer [2]. However, acquiring an image using this tool can be affected by the corruption of data and possible failure of the system.