1) partition, and make file-system, for your clone-target disk, as you chose 2) go to top or root directory of source disk 3) mount target partition, on, say, /mnt

then , execute :-

tar clf - . | ( umask 0; cd /mnt; tar xvf - )

No, don't do that. IIRC tar is unable to archive named pipes (fifos) (Just try to tar up your /dev/ tree and unpack it and check the difference). Furthermore, your file timestamps will be messed up. The dd if=/dev/hdx of=/dev/hdy bs=16k solution should work much better copying even your partition table, lilo boot config, etc., thus really cloning your hd info. Wolly

On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:35:26 -0400 dmarkh@cfl.rr.com wrote:

Yes you would need to partition the backup drive exactly the same as the master. Personally, (this is what I do) I would go out and get 2 removable cases for your drives so that I could easily move it in and out of where ever you might want. Then install it in your machine (master) as hdb and use dd to copy your partitions over. Like this:

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdb1 bs=16k

Do that for every partition but the swap partition. The swap partition should just be created once then you can leave that one alone. After you dd all the partitions, reconfig hdb to hda and plug it in. The VERY FIRST time you will need to boot from the install CD and choose boot installed system. Once it is up run lilo. You will only have to do this the first time and then only if you change your kernels or anything lilo related.

Works like a charm for me and it doesn't matter if your using reiser/ext or what ever.

Hi Mark, Thanks for that. I appreciate that it is simpler to keep everything in one box, but my plan to have the clone located in a networked machine was, however, motivated by two desires : (a) not to have a second drive in my main box whirring away a few inches from my ear whilst I sit here working all day, (b) to ensure that there would be as few hours uptime as possible on the clone so as to get maximum life out of it if and when it is needed (the networked machine is powered down most of the time). I have never experimented with power management under linux, however, and I suppose that it would be possible to power down the /hdb clone whenever a backup was not in progress. I would be very interested to know if this is what you do, or if you have any other thoughts on the subject. Thanks, Geof _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:04:39 -0400 Mark Hounschell wrote:

...

When your done with the backup simply remove the drive and put in a drawer.

Yes, I see that - but I am planning very frequent backups and the way the machines have to be located in my crowded little home office would make that a big chore. Thanks anyway though - I will look into the power management position. Regards, Geoff _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

I attacked this problem a slightly different way. I bought a Promise RAID controller and three (not one) spare HDD. The two-element RAID mirrored RAID array has one drive fixed and one removable. Every so often I take out the removable drive and put in one of the others. Then I reboot - the hardware BIOS complains that the RAID array has a critical failure and offers to fix it. I allow it to do so (it clones the drive again) and off we go. Then the RAID keeps the two drives in sync. If one fails nothing much happens - you don't know about it till next boot time. IB

On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:49:21 +0300 Jaakko Tamminen wrote:

You could also use 5+1 mode with all 3 HD connected.

Then 2 of them would receive striping (fast) write/read, and the third one would have calculated checksum.

If any one of the disk fails, it can be rebuild from the 2 others.

This way You could utilise the extra speed and capasity as well.

Thanks to both Ian and Jaska. I had given a little thought to RAID, but did not have time to investigate properly. Now this paranoia about the possible consequences of failure of my present HDD has set in I am going to get one spare immediately and go with dd solution (plus power down of /dev/hdb1 with hdparm), which will only take an hour. I will then probably go for RAID when I have time to understand and do that job properly. Its a funny thing you know - I could do most of my vital work on a simple Win98 machine - but after almost a year full-time on linux the thought of falling back on any aspect of Windows seems utterly intolerable. Regards, Geoff _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

On Wednesday 19 September 2001 7:04 pm, quintaq@yahoo.co.uk wrote:

Its a funny thing you know - I could do most of my vital work on a simple Win98 machine - but after almost a year full-time on linux the thought of falling back on any aspect of Windows seems utterly intolerable.

That's exactly how I feel after using Linux for 6 months. Windows is like having second best; I intensely dislike using Windows 2000 at work these days. M