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I must confess to having a pre-installed windows here . With the deals available from local pc builders, I saved more than I lost by letting it exist. There's nothing installed. So I boot it periodically, update it, shut it down, and back up to usb. But now look
Code:
root@Ebony:~# cd /mnt/dvd/Ebony/win11
root@Ebony:/mnt/dvd/Ebony/win11# rsync -avc --delete /win11 . && sync
sending incremental file list
<After it completes>
bash-5.1$ sudo du -sh /win11 /mnt/hd/Ebony/win11
47G /win11
57G /mnt/hd/Ebony/win11
That rsync command should give me exact copies = equally sized copies? Not so, it seems. Anyone know why?
That rsync command should give me exact copies = equally sized copies? Not so, it seems. Anyone know why?
Because the Windows uses its kind of symbolic and hard links on its NTFS partitions, which NTFS symbolic and hard links aren't so properly interpreted by Linux itself, no matter if it's Slackware, Ubuntu or RHEL.
I for one, I will strongly recommend you to use for a Windows backup the native tool: Windows Backup.
Anyway, I do NOT believe that Windows backups are on any way related to Slackware - same behavior you will get in Ubuntu, for example.
Last edited by LuckyCyborg; 03-04-2023 at 02:04 PM.
Over the years I have seen instances where the disk-usage for a particular file and its copy was different on two different hard-drives. In the instances I saw, the hard-drives/partitions were configured with different block sizes.
rsync should have logging options that will tell you if it fails to handle a given file. You'll probably want to send the output to a txt file and then look through it for any warnings or errors.
Because the Windows uses its kind of symbolic and hard links on its NTFS partitions, NTFS which symbolic and hard links aren't so properly interpreted by Linux itself, no matter if it's Slackware, Ubuntu or RHEL.
I for one, I will strongly recommend you to use for a Windows backup the native tool: Windows Backup.
Anyway, I do NOT believe that Windows backups are on any way related to Slackware - same behavior you will get in Ubuntu, for example.
Thanks for the replies. That Windows Backup, I take it is a windows program. I'll look it up tmw. Does is back up all these farty 'recovery & whatnot' partitions?
Because the Windows uses its kind of symbolic and hard links on its NTFS partitions, which NTFS symbolic and hard links aren't so properly interpreted by Linux itself
Even in Linux, that rsync command breaks hard links, and uses extra space because of that. Add this:
Code:
--hard-links, -H preserve hard links
You might need this, too:
Code:
--sparse, -S turn sequences of nulls into sparse blocks
Because the Windows uses its kind of symbolic and hard links on its NTFS partitions, which NTFS symbolic and hard links aren't so properly interpreted by Linux itself, no matter if it's Slackware, Ubuntu or RHEL.
What if using ntfs3 (not fuse), does it support NTFS symbolic and hard links?
Thanks for the replies. That Windows Backup, I take it is a windows program. I'll look it up tmw. Does is back up all these farty 'recovery & whatnot' partitions?
Yeah, the Windows Backup is integrated in (and shipped by) Microsoft Windows.
HOWEVER, because I for one usually I backup only my data, I have no idea if Windows Backup can do backups also on the special Windows partitions AND you did NOT asked about a FULL Windows backup on your OP post.
Please be kind to ask on the Windows forums about the full system backup solutions available on the wild.
Anyway, I am quite confident that your tentative rsync backups of Windows are dead data, because I do NOT believe that rsync can restore the boot functionality on Windows and its recovery system, from scratch - i.e. deleting the Windows partitions then later restoring it full from your rsync backups.
AGAIN, this thread of yours has NOTHING to do with Slackware, please be kind to ask the moderators to move it in an appropriate forum.
Last edited by LuckyCyborg; 03-04-2023 at 04:02 PM.
IME, it is a waste of time backing up the Windows OS because you won't be able to restore it... Windows doesn't work that way. You can't just copy files back and expect Windows to work.
I'd say it's far better to run a Samba file share from Linux, use it for files & documents from within Windows, then use rsync to back that up.
Yes, never ever use linux to backup windows and/or ntfs based filesystem. But you can backup your valuable personal data and files.
From my side I would prefer to reinstall windows (and linux too) in case of a serious trouble and reinstall all the required software. So Actually I would never backup an OS.
I've sometimes used clonezilla to back up a Windows 7 hard drive to an external usb hard drive. Clonezilla can do individual partitions as well. I successfully restored the image back to the same hard drive in a laptop.
Edit: I copied the user files to an external drive as well
Last edited by keithpeter; 03-05-2023 at 03:55 AM.
Reason: add copying user files
Please be kind to ask on the Windows forums about the full system backup solutions available on the wild.
Yes, this has morphed well away from Slackware and rsync. I also note that windows doesn't restore like Linux. I actually don't have data on windows to back up! I told folks I didn't use it.
Last edited by business_kid; 03-05-2023 at 04:55 AM.
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. With the deals available from local pc builders, I saved more than I lost by letting it exist. There's nothing installed. So I boot it periodically, update it, shut it down, and back up to usb. But now look 
