search for: old_filesystem_imag

...scripts as well and actually store the tar for backup purposes if you wanted. cd /location/of/filesytem/image dd if=/dev/zero of=sparse_filesytem_image bs=1 count=0 seek=4GB mkfs.ext3 -F sparse_filesytem_image mkdir /mnt/dest mkdir /mnt/source mount sparse_filesystem_image /mnt/dest -o loop mount old_filesystem_image /mnt/source -o loop cd /mnt/source tar -cpVSO * | tar -xC /mnt/dest umount /mnt/dest umount /mnt/source That should produce a perfect copy of the filesystem, in a new sparse filesystem, while maintaining the sparseness of the actual files on that filesystem. Plugin your actual directory and file...