LinuxQuestions.org
Latest LQ Deal: Latest LQ Deals
Go Back   LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Newbie
User Name
Password
Linux - Newbie This Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question? If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!

Notices


Reply
  Search this Thread
Old 11-03-2004, 03:23 PM   #1
izac5
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 10

Rep: Reputation: 0
How to backup Linux on RH 9 Im so confused


Hi there I've spent the 2 days trying to install a second hard drive on red hat linux 9.0. Nothing seems to come easy with me when im working with Linux. I'd love to use Disk Druid but thats only available at initial installation. So i've been forced to use fdisk and parter. Intialy i accidently created a software raid. Now it i got one 120 gig ext3 and i have mounted on a folder called /Backup. I still don't understand everything but this is what i would like to do.

I want to create a complete backup/image of the current hard drive so if it dies or gets screwed up we can just restore from the other hard drive or use the hard drive in place of the other one.

How do i do this?

1. Does a straight file copy work?

2. Do i need all partitions including the boot and swap file? I assume you do but am unsure how to replicate those partitions on the new 120 gig hard drive.


Please help.


Thanks
 
Old 11-03-2004, 06:40 PM   #2
Demonbane
LQ Guru
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Location: Sydney, Australia
Distribution: Gentoo
Posts: 1,796

Rep: Reputation: 47
yea in fact straight copy will work, just need to restore the bootloader manually when you restore. You might want to try something like Partimage

Last edited by Demonbane; 11-03-2004 at 06:41 PM.
 
Old 11-04-2004, 10:13 AM   #3
izac5
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 10

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
What are the steps for restoring the boot loader?

Thanks i think im been put on the right track here.What are the steps for restoring the boot loader if the main hard drive fails? And do i need to create 3 seperate partitions (swap,boot and hda1) on the backup drive or just one?
 
Old 11-04-2004, 12:04 PM   #4
tangle
Senior Member
 
Registered: Apr 2002
Location: Arbovale, WV
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,761

Rep: Reputation: 78
Are you wanting to make an exact copy of the drive or are you just interested in making it so you can recover from an failure?

If you want to make an exact copy, you can use the dd comman.

If you are wanting to back up the config files. You can use tar. For that matter you can use tar to backup the entire drive.

For the boot loader problem, what boot loader are you using? It will be either Lilo or Grub.
 
Old 11-04-2004, 05:26 PM   #5
izac5
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 10

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
We want to protect ourselves from 2 things

1. A hard drive failiure
2. Us screwing up the OS ourselves


So we'd like to do a monthly drive image of the hard drive. Software raid doesnt protect from the second thing. So we need to image it and recreate that image every month.


Thanks.


PS. I formatted and partitioned using FDISK so i could get a ext3 file system. However all the partitioning programs keep on saying a i got a invalid partition table despite been able to add files to the hard drive no problem.
 
Old 11-04-2004, 06:40 PM   #6
tangle
Senior Member
 
Registered: Apr 2002
Location: Arbovale, WV
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,761

Rep: Reputation: 78
You can use the dd command to copy the data from one hard drive to another. I am no dd expert but I think this will work:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

I believe that this will copy the first hard(primary master) drive to the second hard(primary slave) drive.
 
Old 11-04-2004, 07:43 PM   #7
tangle
Senior Member
 
Registered: Apr 2002
Location: Arbovale, WV
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 1,761

Rep: Reputation: 78
Might want to check out this link.

http://p-two.net/hard-drive/hard-drive.html
 
Old 11-10-2004, 10:52 AM   #8
izac5
LQ Newbie
 
Registered: Aug 2003
Posts: 10

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 0
Hi there. I tried the DD command and now i got some wierd stuff happening. It gave me a message that the hard drive was fulll even though i was backing up from 40 gig to 120 gig hard drive.

Anyways before I do anything i need to get rid of this error message. I've gone through fstab and mtab and there are no duplicate entries so it has to be something else. Heres the message.

Mounting Local filesystem: Mount: Label=/boot duplicate- not mounted


and i get the same message when mounting "other file system"

Any advice would be quite helpful. Thanks!
 
  


Reply


Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off



Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
I'm new to Linux, eager and confused.... Ravenscythe Linux - Newbie 29 11-14-2004 09:49 PM
New to Linux and confused by wireless John_Gill Linux - Wireless Networking 1 09-10-2004 09:57 AM
Re: Linux vs UNIX? (Confused) unixfreak Linux - Newbie 14 08-20-2004 10:50 AM
confused about sound in linux Alf829 Linux - Newbie 3 08-09-2003 09:32 AM
Confused w/ Linux noxious986 Linux - Newbie 15 06-03-2003 06:10 PM

LinuxQuestions.org > Forums > Linux Forums > Linux - Newbie

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 05:00 AM.

Main Menu
Advertisement
My LQ
Write for LQ
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute content, let us know.
Main Menu
Syndicate
RSS1  Latest Threads
RSS1  LQ News
Twitter: @linuxquestions
Open Source Consulting | Domain Registration