I thought after recently installing grub Dual Boot with Ubuntu on a system where I had already got windows 7, I had better make a backup of the entire drive(both OS's) using maybe "dd" command, pref. to another disc, as it's pretty big: 500gb, 330gb of which is in use.

Nothing could have been more complicated, it seems, as dd requires AN UNMOUNTED DRIVE or disc, or maybe partition if I do it partition by partition.

What an ordeal, as I don't have another computer, and unmounting seems dangerous, and prob. cannot be done with a running system.

Could I unmount and remount a running system to just make "read-only"?

Am I supposed to unmount just the partitions, one at time? I have an extended drive,based on one particular partition, which Ubuntu kindly made on default-type install. Are there any other options for backing up entire system(s)?

What should I do? I am.loathe to play around with partitions as am not competent yet, and don't fully understand UEFI booting, or NVRAM.It seems in UEFI the UEFI does most of the os system detection, and boot manager.

Any information would be good, or decent, rigorous links! Thankyou so much in advance, you guys do amazing jobs, maybe one day I can be a forum answer specialist!

There are maybe only one or two ways to image a mounted OS/boot drive. Normally one boots to a live media to do this task.

It is possible to image a drive that is data or a non booted drive or partition. Unmount then use some program.

If you have a modern uefi system and you have windows 7 on it then you already have outsmarted the newer uefi usb I'd think. That makes me think you really don't have uefi??

Some windows clone/backup programs will copy linux. Acronis will.

Consider Clonezilla maybe. It can be set to clone disk to disk or almost any networked location.

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...

Seems to be a little (a lot) over the top. Well educated with a thin skin maybe ... :shrug:

Park your ego and accept advice. dd is an awful option - go get clonezilla livecd as suggested. Go to the homepage and start reading.

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It was a signature line. I change it often and will today not because of your comment but because I have a new one.

I have no idea if you have any relationship to a person named Harry. I might be pretty smart when it comes to a very few things in this world but I have no knowledge of you.

Having an external HDD of your data is a good idea.

The external drive should be kept up to date.

As to how often you back up your data to the external drive is a personal decision.

Whether or not I have data to save I do a back up every week.

Using dd to back up your data may be complicated but I've never used it, so don't know for sure.

Instead I use the rsync command as in

where original is, as the term implies, the address of the original and copy is address of the external drive..... How long backing up your data takes is beyond my ability to tell...... depends upon your cpu and amount of data.

All you need now is a, correctly formatted, external drive....... gparted can do this for you. Just make sure you format the correct drive...... format the wrong drive and you'll lose your data.

An explanation of the switches I use is in the man page. I suspect others will use/suggest other switches. To read the rsync man page, type

when you've read enough about the command type q to exit.

There is also this link https://www.howtogeek.com/135533/how...data-on-linux/ which could help you. However

If you making an "original" copy of your data, I'd use the copy (cp) command.

If you want read more about the copy command type

again type q when you've read enough/to exit.

Most linux commands have a man page.

By the way. Having a copy of the installed distro to me isn't necessary. If the install becomes corrupt I'll either do a fresh install or after googling without finding a fix come here and ask.

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Ah, I see. Well, actually I don't - I chose years ago not to be bombarded by what is predominantly drivel eating up screen space.

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It is my online bumper sticker.

Wonder if the OP will return?

dd is not a good choice for backups. Years ago, dd and tar were the tools used with tape drives, etc.; but dd does a bit for bit copy of an entire device so it is slow and inflexible. Tar still has a lot of power and can work.

Many better choices are available today, all that is needed is to look and a quick search will give you at least a dozen suggestions. Something simple and easy but powerful enough to meet your needs would be the best choice. You have to decide what that is.

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