[dago]

saikee,
Linux is a mature OS, so accessing peripherals like hard disks could be benefited by DMA, for instance. That would explain the dramatic difference between Ghost and 'dd'.

So, concerning what you said, it doesn't matter what distro you are using to move your data, a particular one can perfectly copy itself to another disk, right?
I was curious about swap, because those transfers should hardly use virtual memory and when you copy the place you're using to swap... that's generally trouble!
Windows (aghhh, sorry for that) gets crazy when you try to copy win386.swp or pagesys. I never tried something related on Linux, I just thought they cleverly made a special partition (SWAP) to avoid that situation.

Thanks for that.

[saikee]

dago,

I think it is a characteristic of Linux that it can be cloned to another hard drive while being the working operating system in the PC, a feat Windows can never do.

Not all Linux behave the same way in dd. My first operation with dd with Knoppix took 20 times longer than Suse. When I started my dd adventure the same 200Gb drive took 36 hours to clone! I haven't found out the reason behind it yet. It may be something to do with the Linux setup, Kernel version or the support of 64 bit CPU (Suse supports AMD 64 bit processor).

[I Fix 4 U]

also in windows you just can't go copying system files that are in use. linux can esp if you are root.