Okay, so I've tried
SystemRescueCD and I might say I was impressed straight from when it booted, actually recognized alot of stuff exactly as it should (most if not all full linux distros i've used untill now couldn't do smth like this... too bad this is just a RescueCD
, anyway). You will have many options at boot time like: video mode, net support, dma on/off for problematic IDE's, etc. etc. Once in you can type: partimage to start the Image making wizzard ( or partimagessl if you planning on savind the Image on a ftp server with SSL support ) or you can use QtParted (or smth like that) to resize, format, delete partitons (it's actually a Partition Magic clone, very easy for Ex-Windows users or dual booters even
)
Good, so I just wanted to backup ALL my slackware system as it is in this moment so I just used partimage. Here's how I did it:
SystemRescueCD does not mount any of your hd's by default (very good) so I mounted my hdd1 partiton (had to edit /etc/fstab and add the entry). Afterwards just started partimage choosed to make image of hda1 then path and filename (eg. /mnt/hdd1/slackware) then choosed compression level (I did them all 3.. almost) and started the process. Now let me expose the results I got (and remember this are my results and yours might be less or more depending on your PC hardware and so on.. :P).
So my whole system was about 2.91GiB. With NO COMPRESSION I've got a 2.91GiB image file in 1m:54sec. With .gz compression I've got a 1.1GiB image file in 7m:50sec. The .bz2 compression (highest) was taking too long to make the image file (aprox. 27-28m) and got this WARNING MESSAGE before I started the process:
Code:
Because of a bug you won't be able to restore MBR from any bzip2 compressed image unless you manually run bzip2 -d on them.
Yes I might have chances of a <700MB image file with .bz2 compression and write it on a CD for higher security and diskspace but I prefer not, after seeing that WARNING message... you never know. But those who make a image of a system lighter than mine have good chances of getting the image on a CD with .gz compression.
Hopefully this helped, I'm not much of a writer or guider but wanted to share my toughts and what I've found and learned. The bottom line is that if you want to Backup/Restore your system this is the best option (in my oppinion) as the image file save's your WHOLE system as is for later restoring. Cheers, and feel free to ask anything.