I installed a fresh version of squeeze, with kde, and it worked fine. After I untarred my backup /home and /etc, things came to a standstill. I got a final ERROR code after /home. After a restart I got a 'fix your system' warning requiring a Control-D, which I couldn't type.

I had used tar -xzvpPf ......
If I had included a -w, which asks for confirmation before overwriting data, could I have prevented this problem.

My best guess would be you have a configuration file that is throwing the error. I have always found that a restore of data only ( pictures , documents et cettera) and a reconfigure of the new system file by file would be smoothest since in many cases each instal is somewhat different and the dependencies may get thrown off. Especially if your new system has some variant from your old (Packages, Distribution, Kernel) . I typically back up



Then install base system move over data manually to the desired directories and finally modify configuration.

If I was in your boat I would untar the data into a temp directory then move it around manually.

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