Hi.

I've never seen it explicitly stated anywhere - maybe because it's common knowledge I don't have - and because I don't want to fool around with it testing it out because I've heard it's a very powerful command, but to use dd at the command line to back up a partition, or a full disk for that matter, must the partition/disk you wish to back up/clone be unmounted first?

If the answer is yes, does anyone know if dd could be used in an OS X terminal to back up a Linux partition on a dual boot Mac? My understanding, via the wisdom of Cyberdork, is that using Disk Utility to create DMG clones of partitions that are formatted with a system other than HFS+ or one of its variants isn't possible, which makes me question the use of dd in OS X to clone anything other than HFS+ volumes only because I have no idea if there is a relationship between the function of the Disk Utility app and dd.

Thanks in advance.

To those in the States, happy BBQ Day ("independence" is so subjective, lol).