GHacks.net posted a tutorial about cloning a Linux disk with ddrescue

What do you do when you KNOW your hard disk is failing but you’re not ready to do a re-install or lose any of that precious data? Obviously the first solution is to always have a backup of your data. This is great, but it doesn’t solve the issue of having to re-install the operating system which would then lead to having to install all of your applications to get your PC back where it was.

There is a better, quicker way to do this which is to clone your entire drive onto a new drive. You can do this with a tool like GParted, but there is also a command line tool that will get the job done as well. This tool is ddrescue. Now with ddrescue you will have to have your new disc partitioned (it will not partition for you). In this article I am going to show you how to get your dying Linux drive cloned onto a new drive.

  Clone your Linux disk with ddrescue