from
http://www.cpqlinux.com/ddbackup.html ,
dd grabs the mbr when you do a
dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 of=/path/to/mbrBackup.dd
and dump doesn't ever grab the mbr afaik.
but dump does smarter backups of individual partitions.
as far as just grabbing a few partitions to backup, dd will grab all bits in a partition whereas dump only grabs what's used so backups are generally smaller. i'd say you should try both and see how it goes.
once you have a backup file you like, gzip it then use split to break it into pieces of desired size then burn. but i found my system backups on cd's were never any good when i needed them for whatever reason.
in terms of commands for your fdisk -l output i won't guess since i learned to avoid extended partitions from dos and thus use only primary partitions in linux, i don't know if it's different than what i do with my drives.
for restoring, boot to a boot disk and i'd do something like
dd if=/mnt/test/sdb1.dd of=/dev/sdb1
to restore sdb1 if using dd. man dump for details on that one, you format first and cd to where you want the restore root to be, then use the restore command.
if you really want to be sure, get another hd the size of your system one and dd the whole thing onto it and let it sit on a shelf until you need it, that always saves me in the end.
cheers, -bp
