Copying a flash mem card, including boot sector.

[Guest]

Is there a .NET framework call that will make an exact copy of the contents
of a disk, including the boot sector if there is one?

What I have is a Windows CE device that boots from a compact flash card.
This device goes out to customers, where it runs a machine for them. I want
to make a utility that will allow them to back up and restore their system.
I know how to copy the files and directories from a disk, but that doesn't
result in a new, bootable, disk.

I could tell them to use Norton Ghost, and that would work just fine, but I
have already created a utility for managing the information on that disk.
It's a C# .Net framework 2.0 application. I would like to add a "make backup
disk" button to the menu of that utility, but I don't know how to copy the
boot information.

 

[Guest]

I am under the impression you will have to poke down to OS level calls with a
PInvoke. I know of nothing in the framework that will do that.

Another option is to spawn a process that can get at the boot section.
Assume the card is outside of the CE device when formatted, so it will be
similar to writing to any other type of boot sector (floppy drive, hard
drive, etc.).

--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP; MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA

***************************
Think Outside the Box!
***************************

 

[Guest]

I made one mistake. Ghost doesn't work. So, I guess I'll have to do some
serious coding, just so I can copy a disk.

I can't believe that there is literally no way to do this. After poking
around, and even using MS tech support, basically the answer is that it can't
be done by any off the shelf utility that exists, and there is no support for
doing it without low level function calls.

I have been informed that there is a Linux utility to do what I want to do,
but I'd really not deal with that.

Thanks, anyway.