Hi all… I have an almost stable version in my laptop now… I need to know how to backup the root partition so that at a later stage I can restore the entire OS in case it is corrupted…plz help …
If you search in google you will find some freeware stuff but not as good as professional software I use.
I now use Acronis True Image Home 2009.
You can also use Ghost, but ghost only recognizes Ext2 and Ext3, no ReiserFS or other types. Acronis does recognize ReiserFS.
But in both cases, when the partition type is not recognized it can be done with a sector by sector copy.
But this will result in an image file that is as large as the size of the partition, full or empty.
In the other cases, the image will only have the size of the data, and when compressed, can take up to half the size of the data.
you mean Norton Ghost? Is it available in linux?? can u please refer a good free version?
I recommend System Rescue CD and partimage in it to backup partitions. Partimage works like dd but it saves only used sectors of disk thus backing up is quite fast and space efficient due to compression. You can also backup and restore mbr with that tool.
What about Clonezilla??
Hi all… I used Clonezilla to backup my opensuse partition but the image file was saved as .aa
is this a proper image file? I selected the options disk to image and image type as bzip.
I’m not sure because i’ve never used clonezilla but the application that created this image should also be able to read it and recover that root partition.
Use 2 small harddisks (40GB). Install on both of them…
Most of the times it takes a lot more to restore an image (needs some OS to be loaded) than a reinstall. Installing can teach you a lot.
Oh please. Since when a reinstall is faster/easier than a backup??
Restoring an image takes at most 15 minutes? While even a fast reinstall will definitely take a lot longer than that.
The extension is correct becoz its detecting the image file when I tried to restore(But I did not go for a restore). And it was gzip not bzip that I selected during backup…
I created one iso image also and created a bootable DVD image which can restore itself… It took less than 6 minutes to backup my 10 GB partition out of which 6 is used. its a great tool as far as I used… but i didn’t used it to restore…
One query I have… if the image file is larger than a DVD can store, what will I do?
I have no idea but i find gzip/bzip very efficient (if it compresses the root partition). From a fresh 4 GB install i had an 1.6 GB image.
i always simply use dd. i know it aint efficient, but it works 
Then consider partimage. It copies only used bits so you save place and you can recover to partitions smaller than the saved one (of course depends how much you saved 
)
anyways I find Clonezilla a great tool and I think it calls partimage internally plus so many other features … It also copies used bytes only…