Augusto wrote:

The problem with tar is that if a disc gets corrupted or justs blows...

you

have to install suse.. and then make the restore (remember that a fresh suse 7.1 pro takes a looooong loooooong time ....and the you have to restore the tar.....

Yes, but if your disk blows or gets corrupted, you'll have to install SuSE on a brand new disk anyway. I certainly wouldn't continue to use a disk that's prone to corruption. You can always reinstall the OS and any apps you use from CD. It's also a good opportunity to upgrade to the latest SuSE. I'm using 7.0 now, but I was on 6.3 until my last HD went capput. The important stuff you need to backup is your data and possibly your OS setup files e.g. everything in /etc. Most of the time, tape backups are used to restore important data files that user's have deleted by mistake or, when they've cocked something up and want to revert to an old version, to restore old files from a few days before. In my case, this about 99% of the time. Sean.