Ghosting with Linux

[Jason Clinton]

   Our network administrator has been trying to Ghost our Windows 2k box
   for a week to no avail. I'm getting impatient and would like to move
   on with our lives. I am thinking that something like this from a Linux
   on CD distro should do the trick:
# dd bs=1024 if=/dev/hda1 > ssh -2C -l [user] [ip of a linux box
with 10GB free] "tar -cj /var/server-backup.tar.bz2"

   Does anyone think this won't work? I can't really just try this
   because, if I mess up, the target Linux box could space panic. Also,
   does tar like to receive block sizes of a certain quantity? Any
   performance enhancing options I should consider? Is there a way to
   monitor the progress of the operation as it's occurring? Empty blocks
   will be copied too, right?