system backups to bare metal

**PattiMichelle** · 12-Aug-2012, 12:47

Is there a helpful DIY on backing up your full system to protect against a HD crash? The part I don't understand is how to restore to a bare metal drive with a different serial number, since a stock openSUSE install will not boot after such a restore.

I was thinking you would have to boot a live distro of some sort (knoppix?) and edit menu.lst and fstab to reflect the device ID of the new hard drive. It seems like there should be a python or perl utility already written for openSUSE to do this sort of thing to all the system files affected by the changed device ID.

Thank You,
Patricia

**nrickert** · 12-Aug-2012, 13:20

Best would be to setup the system to access partitions by-uuid. That way, they should still be correct after a complete bare-metal restore. The most you should have to do is reinstall grub.

**PattiMichelle** · 13-Aug-2012, 18:49

Thanks

. I already have set everything up with a standard vanilla install - is there a system tool to change all the files to by-uuid?

**nrickert** · 13-Aug-2012, 20:54

When you next install, there's an option in the partitioning section where you can tell it what naming scheme to use.

I don't know if there's a tool. Perhaps the Yast partitioner has an option. I don't think I would want to try it myself, even if there is an option. It is probably safest to go through manually to change them. The command "blkid" will tell you what the uuids are, or you can look at what's in "/dev/disk/by-uuid".

**PattiMichelle** · 16-Aug-2012, 14:16

Originally Posted by nrickert

When you next install, there's an option in the partitioning section where you can tell it what naming scheme to use.

I don't know if there's a tool. Perhaps the Yast partitioner has an option. I don't think I would want to try it myself, even if there is an option. It is probably safest to go through manually to change them. The command "blkid" will tell you what the uuids are, or you can look at what's in "/dev/disk/by-uuid".

Thanks, nrickert! Thanks also for the blkid command. I will give it a try fixing fstab and menu.lst. Hopefully that is all that needs to be fixed. I don't have any encrypted partitions on this particular install - or else the crypto file (whatever it's called now) would also have to be changed. I don't know what else. I have one of those eSATA bare-metal plugins so I can just clonezilla to that, then boot the main hard drive and edit the files I need before I try booting from the hard drive.

**PattiMichelle** · 23-Aug-2012, 19:44

I guess my fstab and menu.lst are not UUID but "by-id" - so I opened the YaST partitioner and checked out the id's and replaced them in menu.lst and fstab (on the cloned drive) but during boot it only says "loading operating system" and goes no further. I used clonezilla and copied the bootloader. Hmmm...

Code:

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sat Jul  7 15:33:41 PDT 2012
# THIS FILE WILL BE PARTIALLY OVERWRITTEN by perl-Bootloader
# For the new kernel it try to figure out old parameters. In case we are not able to recognize it (e.g. change of flavor or strange install order ) it it use as fallback installation parameters from /etc/sysconfig/bootloader

default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title Desktop -- openSUSE 12.1 - 3.1.10-1.16
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.1.10-1.16-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST1000DL002-9TT153_W1V072QJ-part6 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST1000DL002-9TT153_W1V072QJ-part5 splash=silent quiet showopts vga=0x314
    initrd /boot/initrd-3.1.10-1.16-desktop

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 12.1 - 3.1.10-1.16
    root (hd0,5)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-3.1.10-1.16-desktop root=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST1000DL002-9TT153_W1V072QJ-part6 showopts apm=off noresume edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe vga=0x314
    initrd /boot/initrd-3.1.10-1.16-desktop

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows 1###
title WindowsXP x64
    rootnoverify (hd0,0)
    chainloader +1

**nrickert** · 23-Aug-2012, 20:37

Checking a mint system, I see that the "fstab" entry is in the form:

Code:

UUID=a45d4234-8a8d-4d87-8206-4e44ebb3bb6e /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1

If "/dev/disk/by-uuid/a45d4234-8a8d-4d87-8206-4e44ebb3bb6e" doesn't work, then try the "UUID=" form.

**nrickert** · 23-Aug-2012, 20:42

I should have added that the grub boot line for mint also has "root=UUID=string-of-hex-stuff". I don't have resume= configured, so I could not check that.

**PattiMichelle** · 24-Aug-2012, 21:48

Sorry, I should have posted my fstab: (It looks like I chose the by-id option during install?)
grub is my bootloader and the windows is winxp-64

This is the one I cloned from:

Code:

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST1000DL002-9TT153_W1V072QJ-part5 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST1000DL002-9TT153_W1V072QJ-part6 /                    ext4       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST1000DL002-9TT153_W1V072QJ-part7 /home                ext4       defaults              1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST1000DL002-9TT153_W1V072QJ-part1 /windows/C           ntfs-3g    defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-ST1000DL002-9TT153_W1V072QJ-part2 /windows/D           ntfs-3g    defaults              0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0

This is the one after modifying the cloned drive:

Code:

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD15EARS-00MVWB0_WD-WCAZA2794880-part5 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD15EARS-00MVWB0_WD-WCAZA2794880-part6 /                    ext4       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD15EARS-00MVWB0_WD-WCAZA2794880-part7 /home                ext4       defaults              1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD15EARS-00MVWB0_WD-WCAZA2794880-part1 /windows/C           ntfs-3g    defaults              0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-WDC_WD15EARS-00MVWB0_WD-WCAZA2794880-part2 /windows/D           ntfs-3g    defaults              0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0

I got the disk ID's from the YaST partitioner. I looked at the listing for the source drive and compared it to the listing from the destination drive. I'm thinking there is some file somewhere I am overlooking. I never even get a grub line on the screen - just the bios, then nothing.