Gentoo 2006.0 LiveCD and NTFSClone

In the past, I've been using the Knoppix LiveCD and NTFSClone to make snapshot images of Windows workstations. However, since Knoppix 4.0.2 doesn't auto-detect the ethernet port on the Asus A8N-VM CSM motherboard, I tried out the Gentoo AMD64 2006.0 LiveCD instead.

The big trick with the newer LiveCDs is keeping them from booting into X. At the boot: prompt you need to enter "gentoo nox" in order to prevent that from happening. That gives you the normal command line that has root level access to the LiveCD and you can switch between sessions using [Alt-F1] and [Alt-F2].

After that, it's pretty easy to mount a drive and write the image file out to wherever you need it to go. I typically create a hidden Linux partition at the end of the primary drive using ext3 and write a pair of images to it when I finish the initial build. I'll also burn one of the images to DVD-R for use in cases where the user manages to wipe out the hidden partition (or the drive dies entirely).