root@pctech:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000164d7

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2048 960165887 480081920 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 960167934 976771071 8301569 5 Extended
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sdb5 960167936 976771071 8301568 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000be9b2

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 299839487 149918720 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 299841534 312580095 6369281 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 299841536 312580095 6369280 82 Linux swap /
Solaris





the above is the situation i have. sdb1 is a disk the has corrupted GRUB. now i want to back up configuration files for network,webmin,samba and squid so that it will be on sda1.

I tried to find a way to save those files but am failing. see below. sda1 is a linux machine working fine so i connected the sdb disk jst to save configuration, please help

Since you only want to backup small amounts of data you could setup a cron job
to create a directory based on the current date and simply copy your config files into these named directories.

Alternatively, for larger amounts of data, backup2l is an easy to configure backup system for backing up to a disk target.
It performs a mixture of differential and occasional full backups.

However, there are many backup schemes you could use...