Backing up

[Primoz]

I know I'm not really new guy any more, but this is a really rookie question.
I want to back up my system, which folders do i back up, where do I back them up...
I tried many times to get this running, but it never worked well. I know i have to back up directories:
home, dev and etc, but the last time I did that it just made this directories but nothing was in them...
Can I back up on USB stick or DVD-RW or is it better to back up on disk??
Which program is the best for backing up, I'm confused in Keep, it's not really user friendly...

[Qqmike]

Re: Backing up

You might start here and check out Partimage:
http://www.partimage.org/Main_Page

[The Liquidator]

Re: Backing up

I fully agree with you about keep. My problem getting it to work at all - it didn't! All I wanted to back up a FAT 32 partition (data that Kubuntu shares with Windows) and home. Instead the HDD whirred for half an hour and did nothing. >

I did have more success with File Backup Manager (a gnome application), although certain files within the home directory could not be backed up (a very small number and those which you would have to "skip" if you were to copy and paste. The application seems far less flakey than the kde offering and has both backup and restore functions. It will burn to DVD etc and to a removable drive.

The one downside for me is that it seems to insist that the backup be done on an incremental basis. Worth a look though, if you want something with a GUI.

Ian

[tym]

Re: Backing up

I myself have found nortons ghost 14 I have used, and restored kubuntu without a hitch. Don't think earlier versions of ghost work wit lynix but could be wrong. Its simple to use (just make sure click the box "show hidden systems".

[Primoz]

Re: Backing up

I installed partimage, but I can't find it anywhere.
I have HH remix, I can't find it on KDE3 nor on KDE4, it's just weird.

[Qqmike]

Re: Backing up

Try Konsole; type:
partimage
(and press Enter) and see if it comes up.

[Primoz]

Re: Backing up

Try Konsole; type:
partimage
(and press Enter) and see if it comes up.

Yes, now it works, but it say i'm not in root user, so errors are possible. Plus I really don't know what to
back up sda1, 2, 5? probably 2 because its extended plus it's only one that doesn't have 0 bytes.
But I don't know how to back up any thing i do ends either with warning that I can't do that or with that's
partition is unreadable (I probably wanted to back up my other disk which is ntfs)

I really hoped that this partimage was easier to use than Keep, but it's even harder...

[dwneylonsr]

Re: Backing up

Yea, I didn't find Partimage very intuitive.

First it won't backup a live partition. So you need to use it from a boot disk.

Before running Partimage you need to define where to back it up to.

To do that you must first define a directory: mkdir /mnt/mydir should do
then mount a device to that directory. In my case my 'home' directory is a separate partition. So I did mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt/mkdir.

Now you can start Partimage. First cursor down to the partition you want to backup and then tab to the space for the name of the backup. This will start with the directory you created above /mnt/mydir/my_part_backup.gz (although it should default to gz)

Hit F5. I becomes a bit clearer from there.

Now I did start Partimage first to make sure of the partitions that were available the F6 to exit.

You should get the System Rescue CD here. http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page that gives you a bootable CD with Partimage and several other utilities on it.

And good luck