Jump to content

Question about making a backup using partimage


Steve Scrimpshire
 Share

Recommended Posts

I'm not familiar with partimage but have you tried just using dd?

 

from my understanding, dd dumps the whole partition while partimage dumps only the used sections and you have the option of using a compression algorithm to save more space.

 

ciao!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest GorGor

Steve

 

Ahhh, well try these 2 suggestions

 

(1) mount -t AUTO /dev/hd(XX) /mnt

where AUTO IS in lower case and (xx) is your partition number eg, hdc1 (drive 2 part 1)

 

auto will try to mount it as ext3 then 2 then vfat etc

 

(2) If fails, then DO NOT do the mount command but command

PARTIMAGE (my caps) and see what partimage thinks of your target partition.

once you know what type it is (B) exit from partimage and do the MOUNT command putting in the correct file system.

 

(3) I am assuming the target partition is visible to you on normal use. It may be that something weird as happened and the type in minix or something and the kernel with partimage needs a module or differnet kernel?

 

hope this helps

 

ps I have 2 drives and I issue the following

 

keys us

hdparm -c3d1u0Xudma2 /dev/hda

ditto but for hdc

mount -t reiserfs /dev/hdc1 /mnt

partimage

 

my images are on hdc1 as I have yet to get a burner, silly me

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, sometimes I'm so lazy I miss new things that could make life easier ....

Its like ftp clients ... I just stick to the CLi cause I know it and Im to lazy to try anything else.

 

I'll have a look at partimage then ... the compression sounds interesting...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok. I'm confused (and scared) about this. I read your little mini-tut and I have a question. Here's my system right now:

/dev/hdb1             997M  692M  305M  70% /

none                     0     0     0   -  /proc

none                     0     0     0   -  /dev/pts

/dev/hdb6             1.4G  1.3G   61M  96% /home

/dev/hda9             4.3G  2.3G  2.0G  54% /mnt/81home

/dev/hda7              15G  633M   15G   5% /mnt/81root

/dev/hda8              20G  2.1G   18G  11% /mnt/81usr

/dev/hda1             9.8G  3.9G  6.0G  40% /mnt/win_c

/dev/hda5              12G  5.1G  6.7G  44% /mnt/win_d

/dev/hda6             7.9G  5.8G  2.1G  74% /mnt/win_e

/dev/hda11            5.9G  2.7G  3.3G  45% /usr

/dev/hdb8             730M   99M  632M  14% /usr/local

/dev/hdb7             2.1G  163M  1.9G   8% /var

 

 

and I have backed up all the partitions to image files except for the /mnt/win* ones, because I don't plan on formatting them. /dev/hda9, /dev/hda7, /dev/hda8, /dev/hdb6, /dev/hda11, and /dev/hdb7 are all out of order (not from what you can see here, but you can see it in diskdrake), because I did some moving around after install. I've got this blank partition (not listed) that I wanted to delete but it won't let me because it is between /dev/hdb1 and /dev/hdb7 and /dev/hdb6 is after /dev/hdb8.

 

Anyway, you can see my / partition is running out of space, so I wanted to make these images and do a clean install, reboot to the partimage disk and restore those images into the new partitions that I created at install....of course being careful of the filesystem types and not to try to put an image into a partition that is smaller than the image.

 

Now, the confusion. I don't have to restore the MBR, do I? If I am restoring these images to existing partitions of the right names?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As long as the linux / partition is restored to exactly the same position it would work. But I don't think that will happen. I wouldn't worry about it though. After restoring your linux system, just boot off of CD1, do the F1/rescue thingie and reinstall lilo.

 

Don't know why you are having win mount issues. I mount mine just fine. I suspect there are some unconventional entries in the partition table (maybe that blank one).

 

If I were you, really really would do this... back up all to CD's or get onto another hard drive. Then totally 100% erase all partitions. Plan ahead, sketch it out, and recreate in one shot, all the partitions you need for the new setup. Restore the partitions, and edit the fstab and lilo.conf entries so they are all correct once again.

 

I've done this before :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest GorGor

Steve

 

In my mini tut I mention the naughty partition creation suggestion that you only create ONE partition for the whole lot / and so your home and usr folders are merely subfolders.

 

Experts don't like it, it results in a bigger image file and some data is static so you are imaging stuff that never changes. However, it will solve your spaces problems heh heh.

 

(2) This blank partition has me intrigued. I am not an expert so I would take cannonfodders advice. Just a wild suggestion. Mdk can resize and delete partitions. If you decide to do a clean install, b4 you do have a go at resizing first. Then redo the bootloader to overwrite your mbr, nothing to lose as you are going to do a clean install with cannonfodder's suggestion.

 

3) I am wondering if you are referring to the extended parttions from file manager file:/usr/share/doc/HOWTO/HTML/en/mini/Linux-minis-20030211/mini/Partition/partition-5.html#PRIMARY-EXAMPLEi

/dev/hda3....EXTENDED (MY CAPS).......(N/A)

 

I am not trying to tell you how to suck eggs, just seeing if you considered these options. So if I am right try

 

fdisk -l and see what happens

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let me try to explain without having to put up a screenshot. Here's what diskdrake looks like:

 

[/ (/dev/hdb1)] --- [blank (/dev/hdb5)] --- [/usr/local (/dev/hdb8)] --- [/var (/dev/hdb7)] --- [/home (/dev/hdb6)]

 

now it looks this way because this disk originally only had the partitions /dev/hdb1 /dev/hdb5 and /dev/hdb6, but I resized /dev/hdb5 down and created /dev/hdb7, then it had /dev/hdb1 /dev/hdb5 /dev/hdb7 /dev/hdb6. I still needed another partition, so I resized /dev/hdb5 again, creating the /dev/hdb8 in between it and /dev/hdb7. Eventually, I moved the files in /dev/hdb5 to /dev/hda[something] and so now /dev/hdb5 is empty. I tried to delete it to resize /dev/hdb1 up to fill up the rest, but it said that I couldn't delete it because /dev/hdb6 is not the second partition on the disk. Make better sense now? Now, I could move /dev/hdb6 to there, but then it would name it /dev/hdb9, and I would not have room to resize /, defeating my purpose. So, the only recourse I have is to start over.

 

Now, about the partimage mounting problems. I went to do some more backing up. I tried to mount /dev/hda6, got 'Permission Denied', so I mounted /dev/hda5 instead. I made some images and wanted to see what I had on my DVD, so I unmounted /mnt and mounted /dev/hdd there. I got done and unmount /mnt again. For some reason, I cd-ed to /mnt and did an ls and discovered that /dev/hda6 was, in fact, mounted there, so the 'Permission Denied' is a fluke of some kind and it still gets mounted. Apparently, you can mount /dev/hda6, forget to unmount /mnt and mount /dev/hda5 and you'll see /dev/hda5 stuff in /mnt, but if you unmount /dev/hda5, you'll see /dev/hda6 that you forgot to unmount, still there under /mnt and not untill you have unmounted /mnt again, will it be empty. Confused me, too. ;)

 

Anyway, thanks, everyone for all your help so far. Thanks, cannonfodder, for your last post. I didn't mention it, but I knew that I would have to be very careful to make good notes, because after restoring my images, /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf would now be wrong, because they would be restored with the backup from the old HD setup and I would have to adjust them for the new setup. I'm glad you spelled that out in your last post, because what if I didn't realize that? I would be pulling my hair out.

 

Also, after I burn the image from, say, /mnt/win_e to my burner, I then did md5sum on the image on the DVD and compared it against the md5sum of the image on /mnt/win_e. That is how I tell that the burn was successful, right? I'm new to this burning stuff.

 

This will be the true test of DVD burning under Linux, I think.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest GorGor

I don't want to be flamed but,

 

sorry can't resist....for newbies looking at the trouble of no quotas and fixed parttions for certain files/folders

 

I repeat, that for normal home use, a newbie won't get into trouble if he or she creates only the one parttiion for / AND one for swap and if you take my advice AND one for harddisk backups.

 

If you have a number of family members, each with their unique account you may need to read about quotas if you want to.

 

I am not pushing for sys admin to have only one partition for the lot.

 

well so ends my 2 Aussie cents.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...