[CLUE-Tech] Poor man's Ghost?

[David Willson]

Yes, this works for XP, but the extent of the functionality depends on
whether you are imaging NTFS or FATxx.  FATxx partitions can be resized
by parted, but NTFS can not.

Yes, imaging makes a ~great~ part of a disaster-recovery program.  My
recommendation is to image the system partition (usually C:), perform a
'normal' full-system backup, then do 'differential' full-system backups
every day until a differential backup is nearly the size of the backup
media, then start over at imaging the drive.  In case of a failure,
restore the image, the full backup, and the last differential backup. 
Test the restoration process at least every quarter, to make sure it
goes as you expect, or when you need it to, it won't.

The best tool for doing the full-system backups is probably the Backup
app that ships with XP.  You should find it in Accessories\System
Tools\Backup.

'destination' system is the system that the image will be written to. 
'reference' system is the system that the image will be read from.

<plug subject="LFdm" style="shameless">  Please feel free to join us on
May 7th for Linux Fun-da-mentals where I will go over all this imaging
stuph and let you play with it, too. </plug>

On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 19:42, Michael J. Hammel wrote:
> Useful info.  First question:  does this work for XP?  My wife has an XP
> box (and I know next to nothing about administering it, except for
> getting its network running through my Linux firewall) and she worried
> about being able to recover from a disk failure.  Is this the process I
> could use to completely recover the disk image?  IE, does this make good
> sense for backup recovery?
> 
> I can't even backup her data files currently because I can't get Samba
> working (I think it's a firewall issue on my backup machine, however). 
> I don't know anything about backing up the OS and applications
> (Photoshop, InDesign, etc.).  I don't even have a boot diskette for that
> machine.
> 
> On Wed, 2003-04-23 at 18:41, David Willson wrote:
> > The programs you want are 'partimage' and 'parted', preferably run from
> > a recent Knoppix CD.  I've done what you want to do about a dozen times,
> > though only once with the resizing that I assume you will want.
> > 
> > Here's da process:
> > 1. Boot the reference system from KNOPPIX.
> > 2. Mount a writable network resource.
> > 3. Use 'partimage' to backup the source partition to the mounted
> > resource.
> > 4. Boot the destination system from a Win98 EBD, a GeekDisk (TM), or
> > KNOPPIX.
> 
> Does "destination" system mean "reference" system or "backup" system?
> 
> > 5. Create a primary DOS partition as nearly identical to the source
> > partition as possible, a few MB bigger won't hurt, but a few MB smaller
> > might.  Pay strict attention to the Active flag!  It ~must~ be thrown,
> > or you'll get unexpected results.
> > 6. Boot from KNOPPIX
> > 7. Mount the network resource.
> > 8. Restore the image to the new partition using 'partimage'.
> > 7. Use 'parted' to expand the partition to the desired size.
> > 8. Reboot from the hard-drive.
> 
> I missed the early part of this thread, but I assume we're trying to
> disk duplicate on the same machine from which the original (source)
> image was backed up.  Is this correct?
> 
> Interesting this subject would come up just now.  My wife was just
> asking about this, and pseudo-computer-guru she-thinks-I-am, I had no
> answer.  *sigh*
> -- 
> Michael J. Hammel                               The Graphics Muse 
> mjhammel at graphics-muse.org                      http://www.graphics-muse.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Vision is the ability to see potential in the work of others.
> Robert X. Cringley, "Accidental Empires"
> _______________________________________________
> CLUE-Tech mailing list
> CLUE-Tech at clue.denver.co.us
> http://clue.denver.co.us/mailman/listinfo/clue-tech