Hard drive dying, good backup method
 

my harddrive is on the way out, and id like to backup the partitons as images. i know how to use dd if=/dev/hda1 of=hda1.img, but the problem is my hda1 is only 20% full, but a full 10gb image is made.

what is a good way to image my drives?

Why not use tar? That's a perfect use for it.
That'll backup everything starting from / and compress it with bzip2 to boot! When it comes time to recover it (if ever,) simply Keep in mind that the p option is important, as it preserves the proper permissions on the files.

--Ian

This is the way to go
 

I wouldn't back up as an image, per se, I'd just clone your partitions. Disk space is so cheap, there is no need to get fancy and have your entire image fail because of one bad bit.

This is the best way I have found to clone a linux installation. I have used it with success about five times with never a problem. HIGHLY recommended.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...d?dmode=source

just reminding that tar -cvjpf filename.tar.bz2 / wont backup my mbr, so ill havto do that too.

by the way my hd is a wester digital 40gb and is making a loud high pitched noise. ive read that its the bearings.

i know its going because ive heard that sound before ;)

anyone else had this problem?