Help with a System Update and Back up of data
 

06262006 1312 GMT-6

Im running Ubuntu. I have a second HD with one Windows Partition on it. I want to back up some of my Home directory and wipe my system clean so that I can install the newest Ubuntu version. Being still very new, I would really appreciate some help.

wade

What kind of windows partition is it? If it's FAT32 (windows 95/98/ME) then you can usually just mount the partition and copy what you want. If it's NTFS, then that gets a little more difficult.

If it's NTFS, you can do a few things (in my opinion):

1) Install Dapper and make sure that you select to NOT overwrite the existing /home partition. I wouldn't recommend this option (plus you should backup stuff anyway).

2) Follow this guide and do a dist-upgrade.

3) download GParted Live CD and shrink the NTFS partition. Then create a shared FAT32 partition (or just an ext3 partition) in the empty space on the second drive that you can mount and store your files on.

This may help: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome.html

aysiu,

Just curious, but when doing a reinstall or distro change, don't you run the risk of incompatable configuration files in the home directory? I don't use ubuntu, but I know I once switched between Suse and Debian and that really caused problems since I didn't overwrite my /home partition. I ended up just saving the files I wanted to CD and then doing a reinstall overwriting the partition. Admittedly, at the time, I was a rather green linux user...

Yes, you're absolutely correct, but wadesmart is just going from an older version of Ubuntu to a newer version of Ubuntu--not from one distro to another.

06272006 1645 GMT-6

Im thought I would do a clean install so it would be - easier. No possible problems. But... after talking to a lot of people on the Ubuntu forms I decided to wait a while before upgrading. Too many are having problems. I was very lucky to have almost no problems when I moved to linux and when I update my system from 5.4 to .10 I had no problems but this one... I think Ill wait on.

Thanks for the help though.

wade