Clone disks

Cyber Source peter at thecybersource.com
Sat Dec 1 10:52:30 EST 2001


This looks great, Thanks, I will give it a try after I digest it a bit.
Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-nflug at nflug.org [mailto:owner-nflug at nflug.org]On Behalf Of
Kenneth Galle
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 9:55 AM
To: nflug at nflug.org
Subject: Re: Clone disks


Powerquest partition magic and driveimage will work with linux
partitions.  I've found these softwares to be well worth the cash.

Alternately, with linux you can create file images of partitions.  For
example, in a simple one partition system where /dev/hda1 is the root
partition, and a second drive or partition available (I'll use
/dev/hdc1, a vfat partition as an example) you can backup/move around
the root partition by
boot single (at the boot: prompt, type linux single), then at the #
prompt
mount the hdc1 partition:  mkdir /mnt/win ; mount -t vfat /dev/hdc1
/mnt/win
check to be sure the drive is mounted:  df
remount root read-only: mount -o ro -o remount /dev/hda1 /
copy the partition to a file:  cd /mnt/win ; dd if=/dev/hda1
of=MyLittleLinux.ext2
remount the root partition as read-write:  mount -o rw -o remount
/dev/hda1 /

To mount the image file directly (I use this when I do a backup this way
and need to get a file out of the backup) you can mount the image file
to your filesystem using the mount -o loop option.

To put the image back, just create a partition large enough to hold it
with cfdisk/fdisk and dd the file into the partition.

with the root partition, you need to boot with a resuce floppy first and
make sure your /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf are correct and rerun lilo.

No experimenting on "live" systems!

Not sure what you mean by alternate disk boot up (I'm not familiar with
solaris).  Lilo will boot just about anything that it can see (BIOS
limitations).

Ken

Cyber Source wrote:
>
> I would also LOVE to hear about this one, since Ghost and the typical disk
> manufacturer's software do not recognize Linux partitions. Peter
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nflug at nflug.org [mailto:owner-nflug at nflug.org]On Behalf Of
> [Darth] Snowbeam
> Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2001 9:02 AM
> To: Niagara Frontier Linux Users Group
> Subject: Clone disks
>
> Hi all, something I would love to see discussed here are clone disks. I am
> looking for the pros and cons of using clone disks. I actually want a
> better understanding of them. Over the last couple of months, I have found
> I now have some extra disks lying around that could be used as alternate
> boot sources should something happen to my primary disk. Some of my
> queries are:
>
> - Solaris allows for clone disks and alternate disk boot up. Does Linux?
> - Can clone disks be a form of back up? By this I mean, can a clone of
>   your primary disk and partitions be made on a daily basis?
>
> Usually I would go out an ddo the research myself, but as it's something
> that just came up, I thought I would pose my questions here as part of
> such research. Thanks for any info anyone can offer.
>
> ---------
> - [Darth] Snowbeam
>
> "It is not fear that keeps the elephant wary of the mouse, it is his
> wisdom that reminds him not to underestimate his opponent" -me



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