Back up my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd [SOLVED]

[finny388]

My aim is to create a backup of Kubuntu (installed on 4GB SSD) to an external 120GB HD that I can later use as an OS restoration.
Conserving space on the HD is not an issue

in testing dd I keep getting an error

dd if=/home/user/source of=/home/user/destination

where source and destination are folders and 'source' has some files within it.

I keep getting an error stating /home/user/destinaion is a directory.

I expect to get this error when I try to backup.

When I back up I'd like 'if' to be

/dev/sda1

and 'of' to be

/dev/sdc1/MyBackUp

where MyBackUp is a folder at the root of the external drive.

this seems so simple. what is wrong with my syntax?
thanks

[GreyGeek]

Re: DD statement to copy my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd.

dd is for backing up images of all or part of a storeage device, not files in directories.

You need to look at rsync.

rsync(1) rsync(1)

NAME
rsync — a fast, versatile, remote (and local) file-copying tool

SYNOPSIS
Local: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [DEST]

Access via remote shell:
Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST:SRC... [DEST]
Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOSTEST

Access via rsync daemon:
Pull: rsync [OPTION...] [USER@]HOST::SRC... [DEST]
rsync [OPTION...] rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC... [DEST]
Push: rsync [OPTION...] SRC... [USER@]HOST:EST
rsync [OPTION...] SRC... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST

Usages with just one SRC arg and no DEST arg will list the source files instead of copying.

DESCRIPTION
Rsync is a fast and extraordinarily versatile file copying tool. It can copy locally, to/from another host over any remote shell, or to/from a remote
rsync daemon. It offers a large number of options that control every aspect of its behavior and permit very flexible specification of the set of files
to be copied. It is famous for its delta-transfer algorithm, which reduces the amount of data sent over the network by sending only the differences
between the source files and the existing files in the destination. Rsync is widely used for backups and mirroring and as an improved copy command for
everyday use.

[dibl]

Re: DD statement to copy my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd.

Right -- what GG said.

More:

dd: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3090824.0

And, if rsync doesn't scratch the itch, I would seriously recommend clonezilla for what you are doing.

[Snowhog]

Re: DD statement to copy my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd.

I would seriously recommend clonezilla for what you are doing.

I tried, and found that I didn't like, Clonezilla. What I have used (to create separate / and /home full backups) is SystemRescue LiveCD, using the tool PartImage. If, however, your system is formated ext4, PartImage won't work for you.

[finny388]

Re: DD statement to copy my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd.

Thanks all.

I am trying rescuecd. I am booted into its gui right now.

I don't see any backup utilities or buttons, etc.

Looking at the manual http://www.sysresccd.org/Online-Manual-EN, I must be missing something, but where does it explain how to create a backup image?

[finny388]

Re: DD statement to copy my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd.

Ok, so I am almost at the finishing line but the restore won't work

to start the cloning tool I typed 'partimage' and got the partimage gui.

there, with the simple interface, I created an uncompressed backup of my 3.75GB ssd called backup.000 on my 120GB external drive.

then for the moment of truth: to test restoring from this image.

first I ran a simulation with success.

then I ran it for real: I am using the 2nd function (restore partition from image)

It ran successfully (by all appearances)

But when I reboot to Kubuntu I know it is not restored because I added a widget to the desktop to flag whether the restore worked - and it was still there.

I made sure the 3.75GB drive (sda) was not mounted

any ideas? partimage sure thought it had done its job.

[finny388]

Re: DD statement to copy my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd.

without an error message I have no idea what is wrong with partimage.

so I have tried dd. To test, I backed up my usb key containing systemrescue_livecd from within Kubuntu.

something like

dd if=/dev/sdc1 of=/media/backup/test1.img

Then I deleted the usb key to test restoration.

I just used the reverse:

dd if=/media/backup/test1.img of=/dev/sdc1

It worked like a charm. I rebooted with usb key and it worked fine.

So now I was ready to try this with sda (my OS I want to back up).

So I booted into systemrescue_livecd. I created the img no problem. Then restoration appeared to work but upon rebooting found it did not.)

I tried sudo dd but systemrescue does not recognize 'sudo'.

Just as with partimage, it appears to work but doesn't. Could this be related? (both attempts are from within systemrescue_livecd)

[GreyGeek]

Re: DD statement to copy my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd.

"sudo" is Debian (and its spin-offs) way of accessing root. Most other distros and tool kits use the default "su", which will request a root password and then open a root console if you enter the correct password. ("su -") will change the environment from yours to roots.

[finny388]

Re: Back up my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd somehow.

1 Can 'dd' fail yet show success?
2. Snowhog, what is it you don't like about clonezilla?
3 Is imaging/restoring so uncommon in linux/kubuntu? Perhaps my topic subject title is too specific.

[maestrobwh1]

Re: DD statement to copy my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd.

I would seriously recommend clonezilla for what you are doing.

I tried, and found that I didn't like, Clonezilla. What I have used (to create separate / and /home full backups) is SystemRescue LiveCD, using the tool PartImage. If, however, your system is formated ext4, PartImage won't work for you.

You didn't like clonezilla? I know it isn't a pretty program and is still text based but it is pretty fool proof and it works EXACTLY for what you are looking to do. It saved my a$$ just the other night when I had a ppa enabled to keep amarok at it's most recent, then they released kde 4.5 beta and did an apt-get -y ugrade and forgot to put the -d in there and I got a partial upgrade... decided to try to finish it with apt-get dist-upgrade and well, although I did get a desktop, kde 4.5 is so not ready for use. I just restored a recent image from clonezilla. I have been using it for at least 4 years.

I could recommend using a "dump" command into a folder BUT I am not sure I would use it because fat32 is unreliable and won't necessarily maintain permissions for your files.

If your external drive was NTFS, you could make a big persistent disk image (google it and you will see how to create one and how to format it as ext3/4), mount it and "dump" the contents of your operating kubuntu into it. fat32 has a 4 GB file limit so unless your OS is smaller than that, you couldn't do this because the upper limit of the disk image is then 4 GB.

sudo apt-get install dump

from your running system where the first / is just your root directory, and 'target' would be where you want all that to go:

sudo dump 0f - / | (cd /'target' ; restore -rf - )

I found this somewhere and made a text file of the syntax. I have used it to dump and exact copy from one partition to another, but each was either ext3 or ext4. I am almost certain you will not get a usable backup going to fat32.

[finny388]

Re: Back up my OS drive (EXT3) to large external FAT32 hd somehow

Upon fresh installing 10.04 and seeing my widgets survive b/c they reside on my /home directory which is on another drive, I realized this not a method for detecting a successful re-image.

So I created a folder under root after creating an image with partimage to see if it would disappear upon restoring.

And it did! So my attempts with dd and partimage were successful after all.

In conclusion:
dd or partimage for the win. In each case, what could be simpler?
although with partimage you have to mount the source directory manually before hand.

Clonezilla is a mess. The gui is verbose and clumsy, against partimage - no contest.
Plus it told me it failed, yet Kubuntu booted fine and the test folder had disappeared at desired.

Thank you all for your input. Snowhog, now I know why you don't like Clonezilla.

Cheers