Which image backup program can I use?
 

Hello,

I new to the linux programs. Which program can I use to backup my total harddisk to an usb-drive? (Like pqmagic, but could also be text-based).

And maybe there is a good how-to, but I didn't find anything.

Thx.

parted or the GUI qtparted, partimage or dd to name just a few.

FYI it is never a good idea to backup a live partition, you can use a CD like the SysTemRescueCD to accomplish this;

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page


Also see; http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux-Complete...WTO/index.html

I use partimage while running knoppix live cd. I invested in O'Reilly's book, "Knoppix Hacks", this situation was hack #48. If you don't want to buy the book, this link seems fairly complete. http://www.digitalissues.co.uk/html/...partimage.html

Best of luck....

David

P.S. If you are on a lower resource machine knoppix has cheat codes so you can run in text mode or with fluxbox,(My personal favorite.) instead of KDE. You can google for your cheat code of choice. :) It helps on a machine with only one optical drive if you need the dvd-burner to burn your back-up, just because it's easier to load all of knoppix into ram, so you can use the optical drive.

Ah yes, Systemrescuecd. I know it. I will try it. Thx.

With partimage I get the following error when saving an image to usb-drive:

-There was an error while reading the bitmap
-Can't read bitmap block 0 from image

:(

Are you backing up to or from a M$ ntfs filesystem ? I googled a bit and found this.
http://orgs.man.ac.uk/documentation/...e/index-6.html
If your usb drive is formatted in ntfs I would reformat it to ext3, or something else. If the filesystem you are saving is ntfs, I would log back into windows and defrag it. Looks like ntfs isn't fully supported, but should usually work. They say that if your system files are fragmented or in an unusual location it can cause problems.

Best of luck....

David

My usb-drive is complete ext2 since two days, before it was ntfs and the other partition fat32. Maybe there are still some ntfs informations in the mbr? I don't know.

I'll try to backup my /boot partition /sda1 with ext2
and after that
I'll try to backup my / partition /md0 with reiserfs
to
/sdd1 with ext2

But with partimage it fails with
-There was an error while reading the bitmap
-Can't read bitmap block 0 from image
when I'm trying to backup /boot
I don't know if it will work with / I didn't try.

What distro are you using to make your back-up from ? You might be running into problems trying to back up a mounted filesystem. Are you using a live CD ? If you are using a live distro (Not installed on your hard drive), does that distro mount those partitions automatically ?, in which case, you would need to remember to unmount every partition you want to back up.

Let me know how it works out.

David

Ah ok, I need to unmount the partitons which I want to backup.

Do I also need to unmount the partition to which I want to store the partition into? (Maybe a silly question, but maybe partimage works this way)

I haven't used it in a while, but it would look like you need the source partition unmounted, and the destination partition mounted. Here's the link.

http://www.digitalissues.co.uk/html/...rtimage.html#9

You still haven't said what live distro you are using ? That would help. You probably won't be able back up your / while running from it. If you are that could be the source of some of the errors.

Best of luck...

David

I'm using Slackware 11 with the 2.6 kernel and I'm booting from a live cd with systemrescuecd.

Ahhh...I was afraid you were trying directly from slack... :) I've never used systemrescuecd, but if you still have problems and want to try from knoppix I can copy detailed line by line instructions, if you'll post your exact setup, which partitions you want to back up and which dev to back it up to.

Let me know how that's working....

David

P.S. You are from Germany and you aren't using Knoppix ? haha

Do it the easy way: http://www.mondorescue.org/

Ok, I got the Knoppix 5.0 DE DVD. But I got completly lost with it. Give me the cheat codes for booting to the commandline, and give me dateiled instructions, please.

I have a linux software raid. 3 Harddisks as stripset raid-0 to 240 GB. (I know, I'm Insane to have a raid-0 with 3 harddisks, thats why I need a backup of the whole disk).

Here my Partitions:

sda1: mounted as /boot (2GB, ext2)
sda2: swap (2GB)
sda3: raid-0 (20GB)
sda4: raid-0 (~60GB)

sdb1: unused
sdb2: swap
sdb3: raid-0
sdb4: raid-0

sdc1: unused
sdc2: swap
sdc3: raid-0
sdc4: raid-0

raid-0
sda3 + sdb3 + sdc3 = /dev/md0 (reiserfs) mounted as /
sda4 + sdb4 + sdc4 = /dev/md1 (reiserfs) mounted as /home

My Backupdrive should be the usb drive: /dev/sdd1 (ext2)
If this is a problem, I have an 4th drive called /dev/hdd5 (fat32). /dev/hdd1 is to small (fat32).

I only need a backup from /dev/md0 (/) and /dev/sda1 (/boot). I don't need a backup from /dev/md1 (/home). The boot block (lilo loader) is on /dev/sda.

Thx.