FSArchiver for partitions with an installed virtualBox guest - possible?

[kle]

I am now so satisfied with my Lucid setup, that I immediately (before I mess something up) want to make a backup of the entire partition. It took me a while to get it just right, so trying to figure out how to save it is worth a little effort.

Partimage cannot handle ext4, I am told, so I have to switch to FSArchive, which seems straightforward enough, as its on LiveRescueCD, too.

BUT I have virtualbox here, and in the virtual machine sits Windows XP.

I ran FSArchive verbose, and for a while it told me what it was doing, and then information stalled (working on VirtualBox). However, the external hard disk on the receiving end seemed to be working still, its lights blinking.
In the mean time, the current went out, and the whole process, of course, was killed.
So:

Question 1)
Can FSArchiver correctly handle partitions with an installed virtualBox guest?

Questio 2)
If not, how to tell FSArchive to leave out the virtual environment? What parameters to feed, where, and how?

Very grateful for any good ideas or relevant links - can't seem to find anything about this.

[skunk]

Re: FSArchiver for partitions with an installed virtualBox guest - possible?

I dont't use FSArchiver, but a virtualbox guest is generally nothing more than some metadata plus one large file for each virtual drive attached. If was probably very busy trying to process/compress a huge file when the power failed. Each "disk" is a just a file with the extension .vdi.

[kle]

Re: FSArchiver for partitions with an installed virtualBox guest - possible?

Thank you. That sounds encouraging. I'll try again :-)

[dibl]

Re: FSArchiver for partitions with an installed virtualBox guest - possible?

Although I recall having the same impulse after I got my first Linux desktop arranged perfectly (for 5 minutes ...), I've really never found it terribly helpful to try to capture a "snapshot" of the installed OS. Think about it -- you're exactly one update away from an obsolete archive. :P

Here are some points to ponder, and maybe there's something useful for you:

- Since DOS 3, my philosophy has been "back up data, not software". So, my data are always separate from the OS and software applications. Presumably, you have the source media to reinstall the OS and software if you need to. Linux is especially fast to install, although post-installation tweaking can run many hours, for sure.

- Your Win XP VM is a single file, the .vmdk file, so just copy that whole thing somewhere and be done with it

- "Time is expensive, hard disk space is cheap". I bought a rather cheap 2T hard drive, put it in a $30 external USB enclosure, partitioned into 4 partitions, and use them in a rotating fashion to just dump my data, periodically. Yes, the USB transfer is slow. So what? Start it when you're finished with the computer at night, and go to bed.

- When I had a partition with an installed OS that was really important to "image" (not just an archive, but a possible future restoration for warranty purposes), I used clonezilla, from a Live CD, and got a perfect result. Some say clonezilla is not exactly noob-friendly. OK, so what? It's free, it works, and if it takes an hour to "get it", that's not too much to invest in an important project, protecting $$$ as well as data integrity. It literally makes an image of the partition, and copies it to your target storage location. That would be my choice again, if I were inclined to "archive" an installed and configured OS.

I hope there's something useful in there.

[kle]

Re: FSArchiver for partitions with an installed virtualBox guest - possible?

I wish I had asked my question a little earlier; that would have saved me a lot of time and effort.

I went for the Clonezilla, Dibl, and it did the job very convincingly.

I see your point about the apparent pointlessness of backing up partitions, but I expect to stay with Lucid for at least two of the LTS years, just as I did with Hardy. I use Luckybackup for my home files - it is quick, easy and so far apparently reliable - but the time I have put into making this machine exactly as I want it really is no joke. I have downloaded and configured goodness knows how many applications, most of them on the repos, true, but it takes time anyway. I have had to find them, download them, test them, throw some of them out, download others, test, etc., and configure.

Before I saw your suggestions, I had given the FSArchiver a new try. It crashed on me, but was kind enough to shut down the machine - rather than just hang. I don't know what was bothering it: Maybe I should have told it to break down the resulting file (Partimage was able to take all 5 Gib, as they were then, in one file). Maybe it didn't like my vfat drive. It didn't tell me.

For Clonezilla, I required 15 minutes, while I was downloading the Ubuntu version (!), to find out what to prepare for. It is nicely interactive, though I admit it might have worded its questions differently, like "what disk would you like to back up" and "where would you like the resulting file to be stored", but I had already done my "mount" homework and knew my As and Bs (or rather the hda and hdb). The very nicely interactive aspect was that Clonezilla identified correctly (and informed me) about my devices, so that making the appropriate simple choices was really very easy. It was also very clearly and reassuringly informative as it went through the process of copying my hard disk.

The copying took a while, of course, but I washed the dishes in the mean time, and walked the dog.

I have only once had to restore from Partimage, so I don't know much about restoring, but as far as I can understand, the Clonezilla will restore my entire hard disk grub and all.

A small admission: I shall probably have to move from my ageing laptop soon, in which case this will have been almost wasted. However, be sure that the first think I'll do, once I've moved in to the new computer is to do exactly what I did this evening with Clonezilla.