CREATING AN IMAGE FROM A PHYSICAL DRIVE

Creating an image from physical media is a pretty simple process if the media has been removed. You can use a commercial write blocker if you have one. Personally, I prefer to use the udev rules-based system described earlier in this chapter. Regardless of what you use for write blocking, I strongly recommend you use USB 3.0 devices.

My personal setup consists of a Sabrent USB 3.0 hub model HB-UM43 which provides write blocking via my udev rules system and a Sabrent USB 3.0 SATA drive dock model DS-UBLK. This combination can be purchased from multiple vendors for under US$40. My setup is shown in Figure 4.4.

FIGURE 4.4

An affordable disk imaging system.