backing up a whole hard disk

[nmeyers at javalinux.net (nmeyers at javalinux.net)]

On Wed, May 11, 2005 at 09:43:22PM -0400, Mike Gorse wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm thinking about having another go at installing Linux on my laptop, but 
> I am a bit paranoid because I made XP unbootable the last time I attempted 
> this (December '03).  I suspect I ran into the problem with parted not 
> understanding the new method that the 2.6 kernel uses to indicate disk 
> geometry, but I'm not sure.  Or maybe I damaged XP by putting lilo in the 
> MBR.  Anyway, I would like to back up my whole drive in case something 
> goes wrong and am thinking about setting up my desktop to export an 
> NFS-mountable directory that could hold a backup of the laptop's hard disk 
> and running something like the following on the laptop:
> 
> bzip2 </dev/hda >/mnt/backup/ci-backup.bz2

Not a bad idea, but it's best to do this when the disk is quiescent
so the disk image will be in a clean state. I'd boot the laptop with a
self-contained system like Knoppix, then do this copy.

Also I've never had the best of luck with NFS - maybe it's improved since
last I'd tried. I'd just push the image over to the desktop through
some stream-oriented protocol. For example, if you're running ssh on
your desktop, you could do this:

  bzip2 </dev/hda | ssh -l <username> <desktop hostname> 'cat >/backup/ci-backup.bz2'

Nathan

> 
> I assume that this would allow me to restore the drive exactly as it was 
> if I screw things up again, but can anyone comment as to whether or not it 
> will do what I think it will do?
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> -- Michael Gorse / AIM:linvortex / http://mgorse.home.dhs.org --
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