Install Slackware from backup disk
 

Hello,
I am a total newbie at this, so I apologize if my questions seem too lame. However here it is. We have a linux box running slackware which was installed by an ex-employee. He had a backup running every week which would copy all the directories/files on the box, and it would create an .iso image. I was told that I would be able to create a CD from the image file and pop it in a machine, and I would have an exact duplicate of the original machine. Well I tried to do that having changed the BIOS to boot from CD and all, unfortunately nothing happens. The CD doesn't seem to boot at all. On browsing the CD on a Windows box, I see there are some .bak files(lilo.bak, fstab.bak etc) and then a .tar.gz file which is about 200MB. So in summary I am not sure what to do or how to go ahead and do what I need which is to create a replica machine from this CD. Any help, advice, suggestions are appreciated.
Thank you.

well its probably not as simple as popping in the cd and being done.

couple guesses. one the cd is not bootable, and two there is no installer on the cd.

what he did was just tar all the files into a backup that you can untar and copy back to the appropriate partitions..

Thank you for the answer. What would be the best way for me to get the files off the CD? Do I need to install Slackware first and then untar the files, which "should" automatically place the files in the correct directories? Or is there another way? Also is there a specific untar command for this? Thanks again!

you are gonna need some sort of install for this.

best thing would be to have another linux box. first thing to do is to untar the backup tars and see what is in them, it could be / and everything under it (everything) or it could just be /usr/local or /home or something. if it is / then you could possibly just format the / partition on the hd and copy all the files, put the drive back in the old machine and boot. if it is /home/ or /usr/local or some other subdir under / then you should probably just do a fresh install on the drive, and then copy the untarred backup dirs to the appropriate place.

just be sure to keep a good copy of your backups out of harms way and you should not have any worries and as many tries as needed.

If the machine happens to have two CD drives you could boot it of
knoppix, create partitions that match the current system, make
file-systems on them, and untar everything to right spot. If that's
not the case (only one drive) you'll need to install slack first, and
then restore over the over the top of it.



Cheers,
Tink

Thank you again for your replies. I partitioned my HD similar to the old one, and installed Slackware on it, here are my partitions:
/dev/hda2 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda3 / ext2 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda1 /boot ext2 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda5 /var ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda6 /tmp ext2 defaults 1 2

Now hda1 is set to be the bootable device. At one of the steps in the installation, it asks me to write the "Where do you want to boot from" and gives me options like "Root", "Floppy" and "MBR" . I select the "Root" option and after finishing the other screens, the machine reboots and all I see is a blinking cursor on the top left. What am I doing wrong? Thanks again in advance!

i have never booted from anything but the MBR, so i would reccommend doing that.

unless you have some reason not to?

You can boot from the Slackware CD 1 -- at the beginning you are prompted for boot options and there is an example how to boot from an existing partition. Sorry, I don't remember the exact message, but you can type it like it is and substitute the example partiton with your your /dev/hda1. It should be something similar to "root=/dev/hda1 noinitrd ro". This should start your Slackware installation.
Then you can run liloconf as root to walk through configuring and installing LILO again and install it in the MBR.