[CVALE] Backup/Imaging

[Terry]

Hi Dan,

What I've done before is just to copy the entire original disks to separate hard disks using the 
'dd' command.  You can label and set aside your original disks knowing they won't be touched and 
will work when installed back into the machine if no other hardware changes have been made.

It's been suggested to use "dd" to copy partitions instead of the entire disk at once when there are 
disk geometry mismatches.

I "play" with the copies not the originals.  As I posted here previously I had trouble with the 
Adaptec brand external drive enclosures as it corrupted the copied data.  The CompUSA brand USB and 
firewire enclosures have worked well for me.  (I don't have the chipset info available right now.)

I've also booted from a linux installation cdrom having maintenance commands available (mount, dd, 
fdisk, etc...) with the source and target disks plugged directly into the bus (IDE, SCSI) and copied 
the disks or disk partitions one at a time.  You can do this disk copying on any computer, you don't 
have to use your Myth box.

Of course if you reverse the "if" and "of" devices in the "dd" command you've just erased you 
original disks so be careful.

There are probably more sophisticated "goof proof" Linux solutions out there that other CVALErs can 
tell you about.

Terry



dan at imabiz.com wrote:
> Since the list is a little quiet right now, thought I'd pop in a
> philosophical/newbie question:
> 
> How best to back up a Linux installation?
> 
> I want to try some significant upgrades on my MythTV box (including Fedora
> itself), but I better be able to "go back" since there's a high likelihood
> some bit won't be happy.  [I spend way too much time in the land of Windows,
> where there's NO perfect backup scheme, and I'm used to thinking in terms of
> disk images vs. file copying.]
> 
> In the real world, what works best to "put you back to where you were"?  Any
> thoughts/links/details would be appreciated.
> 
> -- Dan Langhoff
> 
> 
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