[TriLUG] backup up a laptop disk for replacement

[Rodent of Unusual Size]

Roy Vestal wrote:
> 
> or just dd from drive to file then new drive from file

okey, i'm thick and don't do this sort of stuff often (thank
goodness!)..  any special arguments to dd?  and how do you
specify/determine the amount of data to dd?  this specific
thing i've never done before.

i *don't* have enough disk space on the laptop, so i'm going
to have to xfer it across the net.  i *don't* have spare ide
bays, and don't want to keep popping the skins anyway, so
the drive-size adapter idea, thoguh interesting, doesn't
help much.  i have no idea how to access remote samba filesystems
from a non-rl3 environment; since i expect i'll be using
one of the alternate consoles from the rh install cds, how
is that done?

please, small words and complete steps, as though i'm a newbie (which
i aam for most of the actions needed for this, at least for linux).

i find it interesting that no-one has commented on dump/restore.
does no-one even use them anymore?