partimage and umount frustrations
 

I like the program Image for DOS (IFD) and use it with windows. I was looking for a similiar package to use with my Debian Etch hard drive (hdb) I got partimage with apt-get and it has a nice GUI under my wm (blackbox) however I have a problem and question(s):

problem: It would seem that after reading on the partimage webpage (www.partimage.org) it doesn't save the image to a CD but instead must always be a 'file' on the HD..if this is the case this is no good.

question: partimage can't make an image of a mounted filesystem, and that makes sense, but I can't dismount the filesystem with:

#umount -a -hdb1

or infact any combination of available options of umount without getting the busy warning.

There is a link on the site to an iso image, an impressive recovery cd (115MB) that I downloaded and installed to a CD that runs gentoo (Debian) and did boot the system on a test, but I did not go further.

question2 is using a 'rescue' cd the only way to use a program like partimage or is it possible to umount the file system one wants to image.

Is there a package to image the whole HD? I have Debian booting from a an MBR copy in front of hdb1 (using the boot manager XOSL) and if one was to restore the complete system it would be nice to get the MBR for that partition in there too.

If there any better solutiions to imaging the Debian file system (Ext3) Journaling? in a way that makes it restorable like it was i.e. if the HD had to be replaced, or I blew up my present happy config. I would be glad to hear about it.

thanks for reading my letter,

chas.

It is best to boot with a a live cd like knoppix or rescue cd (115meg cd you mention) that has the partimge tools on it. Then you can use a USB drive to backup to or if you can get packet writing enable to the CD then that can work as well.

umount /dev/hdb1 is the unmount command. Requires root to run.

You can usually unmount all partitions except / to do this task unless partimage is on a differnet partition or part of its other needed files. Live CD or rescue cd is the way to go for non critical servers.

Brian1