backup files before reinstall HELP!

ludeKing · 08-14-2003, 11:21 PM

Argh!
I have just unwittingly stuffed up something in my linux install and need to reinstall.

I have a bunch of files in /home/stevo I need backed up to another partition called /dev/fat2 or /dev/hdb3

How can I get these files?

quest4knowledge · 08-14-2003, 11:39 PM

Quote:

I have just unwittingly stuffed up something in my linux install

I dont really know what that means so Im going to assume you cant boot, right?

Also you should include what distro you are using and any kind of errors you receive. Since without some basic info like that one can only guess.

So, if you cant boot then you obtain some form of rescue disk. For instance if you are using redhat then you can use it and type linux rescue(i believe) and then mount your drives and copy files. With most distros you can use the install disks as rescue disks so try that.

ludeKing · 08-14-2003, 11:42 PM

I can boot, I can get to the login section, i just can't 'startx'....

I need the commandline equivalent of the process I described before!

WNxSquee · 08-14-2003, 11:45 PM

If you can still boot and have another computer or os on that computer that you can use. I would try one of the Live distros that you can boot from the cd-rom. Knoppix(700MB) is great and you can also get slackware live(180MB). There are also Live distros that are under 60 that you can find at distrowatch.com

Zb7 · 08-14-2003, 11:46 PM

Assuming those vfat filesystems are mounted and the permissions are ok, you can probably just copy (command is "cp source destination") the files you need over there.

If those filesystems need to be mounted yet, you can do that with this:

mkdir /mnt/mountpoint
mount /dev/hdaXY /mnt/mountpoint
cp /home/stevo/file.XXX /mnt/mountpoint