Hi

I have a desktop and I have installed Centos 5.4

Now I need a backup software
I am planning to backup the entire disk to a external USB drive let us call this backup A.

Next I plan to install another flavor of linux maybe ubuntu or Oracle linux 4.4

after going thru certain config and stuff I intend to take another backup and call this Backup B - this will also go to an external HDD

Now if I have a software (on CD) which can backup the drive and restore the drive without booting from the current config of the desktop it would be fantastic.

This is the solution I am looking for

I am sure that acronis can do exactly what I am asking for. But acronis is a paid software and you know I am a FREEBIE kinda person.

I hope that some FREE software exists which can backup/restore the complete drive including grub loader and partition info and everything.

And this software should run on its own - I boot from a cd and do the magic.

Please help

Since you make it a point to say FREE several times, why do you mention Oracle in this post?? That's certainly not free.

There are several threads on LQ that deal with this very question. Specifically, search for mkcdrec, systemimager, and mondoarchive. They will probably do what you're looking for.

The reason I mention Oracle is that I plan to install Oracle on this desktop.

I have installed oracle more than 8 times - different versions at home. Oracle is totally
free if you plan to use it for test/education purposes at home with no commercial use.

I am an Oracle DBA and have more than 7 years experience managing databases but never
handling installs on linux. I have installed oracle on Windows.
So I decided to learn how to install databases on linux. My Linux status is
definitely at status "newbie". Recently I have started tinkering more with this stuff at my
house.

Currently I have 5 machines at house. I plan to install different versions of Linux and Oracle and of course the big install will be an install of 3 machines networked with each other. 2 running oracle talking to the same database and one where the shared files will be installed will host the database and this will be using openfiler

But I am sure I am boring you with my post - However if you need any help with Oracle
my email address is rjngh + you have to concatenate this with 2005 + concatenate it with gmail.com and of course you have to add the shift 2 key in between


Yea...I just finished a complex install of Oracle Grid control on Centos with a repository
and a management agent and everything works...along with startup/shutdown/reboot machine and
i now know how to handle everything from install to startup to shutdown.

But this is quite boring for you.



Thanks for your post.

I shall definitely try your suggestions and when I am successfull I shall update this thread

Thanks again.

well well well

I found clonezilla

this software does exactly what I need

It is FREEE !!!

step a) Insert clonezilla in cd drive and make sure your usb external drive is connected
step b) reboot your computer (of course your computer should be able to boot from cd)
step c) backup your computer to external disk
step d) remove cd from drive
step e) startup your computer
step f) make changes on computer
step g) put cd in drive and plug usb drive
step h) reboot and restore from usb drive
step i) make sure that computer works as expected

Yes !!!!

This works

CLONEZILLA is the greatest !!!!

Thanks a lot TBONE !!!!