[NTLUG:Discuss] Full system backup-restore for Desktop PC

[Pat Regan]

Ralph Green, Jr. wrote:
> Howdy,
>   dd is what you would use to restore, too.  and since the drive is
> smaller than a DVD, you can skip the compression.  That make the process
> much faster.  dd is slower than Ghost because it transfers all sectors,
> including empty one.  Ghost, just notices the empty ones and send counts
> over.  But, dd is how I would do the job you describe.  The restore
> would work pretty well because you could boot up with knoppix or toms
> reboot and then restore straight from the DVD to her hard drive.  You
> could also store her drive image on the network, but I like the DVD for
> home usage like you describe.

I don't believe an uncompressed dd image of his drive will fit onto a
DVD.  It doesn't matter how much free space he has on the partition, and
I am assuming his partition is more than 4.3 gig.

I also don't think dd is the right tool for the job here.  Even if he
compresses the dd image, he will still be compressing left-over deleted
files (or whatever may have been on the drive before he last
repartitioned it).  What he should probably be using is file level
utility like tar or cpio.

I have used both in the past and I currently use cpio to backup my home
pc and laptop.  You just have to make sure you exclude /proc, /sys,
/tmp, and probably the destination of the backups.

This way you don't have to worry about partitions matching up at all.
Just boot up a rescue cd, partition and mount the target drive, restore
your data, fix up your fstab, install a boot loader, and you are done.
Not as automatic as ghost, but more flexible than dd :).

I have never actually had to perform a full restore from one of my
backups yet, but I did perform a test restore of my laptop under VMWare.
 It worked like a champ.

I also used to burn a smallish rescue disc onto my backups but I got
lazy about that.

I would be happy to share my meager backup scripts with anyone who wants
them, of course.

Pat