Disaster Recover Preparation -- How to do it?
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a Dell Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk. I have 2 usb 2.0 ports and two USB hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups. I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace the failed drive in the machine, re-install SuSE from the installation CD, then do a full recovery from one of the USB hard-drives. Currently, I can re-install 8.1 out of the box, overlaying my data, point to a YAST backup, do a full recovery, and everything comes back and works perfectly. When I upgrade to a later version of SuSE (I've tried 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1) and try the same thing, a lot of my software no longer works after the recovery. Apparently, when you move to a later version, you lose the ability to use YAST for full recovery. So, I can either keep all of the software I currently have or I can move to a later version of SuSE, but I can't do both! I have an Oracle Enterprise database server on my Pro machine, which took tons of work to configure. I can't afford to lose it. This is what has been holding me up from moving forward. I am investigating some 3rd party software that I recently purchased that's supposed to a full recovery for you, but I'm not too sure about it after having worked with it for a few weeks. Is there a way to do this type of recovery strictly using some basic software that comes with my SuSE 8.1 Pro? Even if it's a multi-step process, if it would work, I'd like to know how to do it. Can you back up each high-level directory separately and then recover each of those back while your system is running? Any suggestions greatly appreciated, Greg Wallace
On Sun, 2005-04-17 at 18:54 -0800, Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a Dell Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk. I have 2 usb 2.0 ports and two USB hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups. I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace the failed drive in the machine, re-install SuSE from the installation CD, then do a full recovery from one of the USB hard-drives. Currently, I can re-install 8.1 out of the box, overlaying my data, point to a YAST backup, do a full recovery, and everything comes back and works perfectly. When I upgrade to a later version of SuSE (I've tried 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1) and try the same thing, a lot of my software no longer works after the recovery. Apparently, when you move to a later version, you lose the ability to use YAST for full recovery. So, I can either keep all of the software I currently have or I can move to a later version of SuSE, but I can't do both! I have an Oracle Enterprise database server on my Pro machine, which took tons of work to configure. I can't afford to lose it. This is what has been holding me up from moving forward.
Why not do a full dump of the database, install the newer SuSE fresh, install Oracle and then import the database back into Oracle? You can dump the database to one of the USB drives. You don't state what other packages are installed that will give you problems. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998 "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge
On Sunday 17 April 2005 22:54, Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a Dell Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk. I have 2 usb 2.0 ports and two USB hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups. I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace the failed drive in the machine, re-install SuSE from the installation CD, then do a full recovery from one of the USB hard-drives. Currently, I can re-install 8.1 out of the box, overlaying my data, point to a YAST backup, do a full recovery, and everything comes back and works perfectly. When I upgrade to a later version of SuSE (I've tried 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1) and try the same thing, a lot of my software no longer works after the recovery. Apparently, when you move to a later version, you lose the ability to use YAST for full recovery. So, I can either keep all of the software I currently have or I can move to a later version of SuSE, but I can't do both! I have an Oracle Enterprise database server on my Pro machine, which took tons of work to configure. I can't afford to lose it. This is what has been holding me up from moving forward. I am investigating some 3rd party software that I recently purchased that's supposed to a full recovery for you, but I'm not too sure about it after having worked with it for a few weeks. Is there a way to do this type of recovery strictly using some basic software that comes with my SuSE 8.1 Pro? Even if it's a multi-step process, if it would work, I'd like to know how to do it. Can you back up each high-level directory separately and then recover each of those back while your system is running? Any suggestions greatly appreciated,
Greg Wallace
Hi Greg, You may want to try g4u: http://www.feyrer.de/g4u Looks like version 2 may have support for usb disks. All it would cost you is a cd or 2 floppy disks to find out for sure. I have used this in the past at work in an earlier version and have no complaints at all. Regards, Phil
On Sun, 2005-04-17 at 18:54 -0800, Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a
Dell
Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk. I have 2 usb 2.0 ports and two USB hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups. I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace
failed drive in the machine, re-install SuSE from the installation CD,
On Sun, 2005-04-17 at 18:54 +-???? (how'd you get my UTC offset?) Ken Schneider wrote: the then
do a full recovery from one of the USB hard-drives. Currently, I can re-install 8.1 out of the box, overlaying my data, point to a YAST backup, do a full recovery, and everything comes back and works perfectly. When I upgrade to a later version of SuSE (I've tried 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1) and try the same thing, a lot of my software no longer works after the recovery. Apparently, when you move to a later version, you lose the ability to use YAST for full recovery. So, I can either keep all of the software I currently have or I can move to a later version of SuSE, but I can't do both! I have an Oracle Enterprise database server on my Pro machine, which took tons of work to configure. I can't afford to lose it. This is what has been holding me up from moving forward.
Why not do a full dump of the database, install the newer SuSE fresh, install Oracle and then import the database back into Oracle? You can dump the database to one of the USB drives. You don't state what other packages are installed that will give you problems.
-- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998
"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge
Ken: I know enough about Oracle to be able to configure it but I'm not expert enough to know how to back that up. Not sure if you can back up all of the system settings, software, etc. It took me a long time to get everything set up properly (Apache ISQL PLUS server settings, initxxxx parameter file settings, Oracle networking software settings, Oracle user id from which you do maintenance, port settings for Oracle Net and the Oracle Apache server, etc., etc.). I'm sure there's a way to back up the data, but I'm not sure about all of the software and settings. I was hoping I could do some sort of directory level system backup so that I could just recover those directories in their entirety and not have to dig into all of those details. I set this up over a long period of time with multiple tweaks along the way. Not sure I could do all of that again. Thanks, Greg Wallace
On Sunday, 17 April 2005 7:41 PM, Phil Savoie wrote:
On Sunday 17 April 2005 22:54, Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a
Dell
Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk. I have 2 usb 2.0 ports and two USB hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups.
I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace the failed drive in the machine, re-install SuSE from the installation CD, then do a full recovery from one of the USB hard-drives. Currently, I can re-install 8.1 out of the box, overlaying my data, point to a YAST backup, do a full recovery, and everything comes back and works perfectly. When I upgrade to a later version of SuSE (I've tried 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1) and try the same thing, a lot of my software no longer works after the recovery. Apparently, when you move to a later version, you lose the ability to use YAST for full recovery. So, I can either keep all of the software I currently have or I can move to a later version of SuSE, but I can't do both! I have an Oracle Enterprise database server on my Pro machine, which took tons of work to configure. I can't afford to lose it. This is what has been holding me up from moving forward. I am investigating some 3rd party software that I recently purchased that's supposed to a full recovery for you, but I'm not too sure about it after having worked with it for a few weeks. Is there a way to do this type of recovery strictly using some basic software that comes with my SuSE 8.1 Pro? Even if it's a multi-step process, if it would work, I'd like to know how to do it. Can you back up each high-level directory separately and then recover each of those back while your system is running? Any suggestions greatly appreciated,
Greg Wallace
Hi Greg,
You may want to try g4u:
Looks like version 2 may have support for usb disks. All it would cost you is a cd or 2 floppy disks to find out for sure. I have used this in the past at work in an earlier version and have no complaints at all.
Regards,
Phil
This looks interesting. So you can use "copydisk" to copy your entire internal hard drive to a USB hard drive? My hard drive is /dev/hda2. I mount my EXT2 USB hard drive via -- mount /dev/sda5 /media/sda5 So would I say "copydisk /dev/hda2 /dev/sda5 to do the copy or would I mount the device and say "copydisk /?/? /media/sda5 (I don't know where my hard drive is mounted. When it comes to these hardware related things, I have limited knowledge.). Thanks, Greg Wallace Greg W
Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a Dell Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk.
If the hard drive fails then you are up a gum tree. You need a BIOS revision which permits booting from floppy or CD or USB drive. If you can do that maybe you can install SuSE on one of the USB drives even if you have to bootstrap from minimum system on floppy or CD and wait for the USB drive to be recognised? I have 2 usb 2.0 ports and two USB
hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups. I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace the failed drive in the machine,
If my sole drive failed, would I replace it or replace the machine and start again? I believe the only way to answer that question is with a screwdriver. Remove the drive before it fails and spend an hour or so contemplating the way forward. You are looking at a boat-anchor if you can't quickly recover - not your system but - your productivity. You might spend days trying to get a Dell Opti.. to jump through clever booting hoops when it could be quicker and less expensive to ... 1. buy another machine 2. run them in parallel 3. gradually get one machine totally up-to-date - OS and apps 4. switch daily operations across to that machine 5. update the original machine, aggressively if you like 6. use one or other machine as a local backup for the other (note, you would still use USB drives for off-site backup) 7. every now and then unplug your operational machine and see if you can get back to work quickly on the other. That will quickly indicate any holes in your recovery which will point accurately to deficiencies in your backup procedures. 8. when the OS is updated and you want to go there see 3 above, again. re-install SuSE from the installation CD, then
do a full recovery from one of the USB hard-drives. Currently, I can re-install 8.1 out of the box, overlaying my data, point to a YAST backup, do a full recovery, and everything comes back and works perfectly. When I upgrade to a later version of SuSE (I've tried 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1) and try the same thing, a lot of my software no longer works after the recovery. Apparently, when you move to a later version, you lose the ability to use YAST for full recovery. So, I can either keep all of the software I currently have or I can move to a later version of SuSE, but I can't do both! I have an Oracle Enterprise database server on my Pro machine, which took tons of work to configure. I can't afford to lose it. This is what has been holding me up from moving forward. I am investigating some 3rd party software that I recently purchased that's supposed to a full recovery for you, but I'm not too sure about it after having worked with it for a few weeks. Is there a way to do this type of recovery strictly using some basic software that comes with my SuSE 8.1 Pro? Even if it's a multi-step process, if it would work, I'd like to know how to do it. Can you back up each high-level directory separately and then recover each of those back while your system is running? Any suggestions greatly appreciated,
I would be reluctant to trust a 3rd party to get my particular backup and restore requirements correct. That's because I don't think about backup very much. Like you I focus on restore. Backup is only something you you do so you can restore. I also test my restores so I can identify and plug holes. Regards mike
Greg Wallace
On Sunday, April 17, 2005 @ 8:56 PM, I wrote: On Sunday, 17 April 2005 7:41 PM, Phil Savoie wrote:
On Sunday 17 April 2005 22:54, Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a
Dell
Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk. I have 2 usb 2.0 ports and two USB hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups.
I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace the failed drive in the machine, re-install SuSE from the installation CD, then do a full recovery from one of the USB hard-drives. Currently, I can re-install 8.1 out of the box, overlaying my data, point to a YAST backup, do a full recovery, and everything comes back and works perfectly. When I upgrade to a later version of SuSE (I've tried 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1) and try the same thing, a lot of my software no longer works after the recovery. Apparently, when you move to a later version, you lose the ability to use YAST for full recovery. So, I can either keep all of the software I currently have or I can move to a later version of SuSE, but I can't do both! I have an Oracle Enterprise database server on my Pro machine, which took tons of work to configure. I can't afford to lose it. This is what has been holding me up from moving forward. I am investigating some 3rd party software that I recently purchased that's supposed to a full recovery for you, but I'm not too sure about it after having worked with it for a few weeks. Is there a way to do this type of recovery strictly using some basic software that comes with my SuSE 8.1 Pro? Even if it's a multi-step process, if it would work, I'd like to know how to do it. Can you back up each high-level directory separately and then recover each of those back while your system is running? Any suggestions greatly appreciated,
Greg Wallace
Hi Greg,
You may want to try g4u:
Looks like version 2 may have support for usb disks. All it would cost you is a cd or 2 floppy disks to find out for sure. I have used this in the past at work in an earlier version and have no complaints at all.
Regards,
Phil
This looks interesting. So you can use "copydisk" to copy your entire internal hard drive to a USB hard drive? My hard drive is /dev/hda2. I mount my EXT2 USB hard drive via --
mount /dev/sda5 /media/sda5
So would I say "copydisk /dev/hda2 /dev/sda5 to do the copy or would I mount the device and say "copydisk /?/? /media/sda5 (I don't know where my hard drive is mounted. When it comes to these hardware related things, I have limited knowledge.).
Thanks, Greg Wallace
After further reading, it looks like you create a bootable CD. Then, after boot, you have a screen that allows the -- "copydisk", etc. commands. You can enter -- "Disks" and get a list of all drives, including you hard drive and any USB connected disks. You then use the "copydisk" command to copy one disk to the other. You can restore by reversing the "copydisk"; i. e. copydisk my_usb_disk my_internal_disk Is this the way it works? Thanks, Greg W
On Monday, April 18, 2005 @ 12:12 AM, Mike Dewhirst wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a
Dell
Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk.
If the hard drive fails then you are up a gum tree. You need a BIOS revision which permits booting from floppy or CD or USB drive.
If you can do that maybe you can install SuSE on one of the USB drives even if you have to bootstrap from minimum system on floppy or CD and wait for the USB drive to be recognised?
hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups. I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace
I have 2 usb 2.0 ports and two USB the
failed drive in the machine,
If my sole drive failed, would I replace it or replace the machine and start again?
I believe the only way to answer that question is with a screwdriver. Remove the drive before it fails and spend an hour or so contemplating the way forward. You are looking at a boat-anchor if you can't quickly recover - not your system but - your productivity.
You might spend days trying to get a Dell Opti.. to jump through clever booting hoops when it could be quicker and less expensive to ...
1. buy another machine 2. run them in parallel 3. gradually get one machine totally up-to-date - OS and apps 4. switch daily operations across to that machine 5. update the original machine, aggressively if you like 6. use one or other machine as a local backup for the other (note, you would still use USB drives for off-site backup) 7. every now and then unplug your operational machine and see if you can get back to work quickly on the other. That will quickly indicate any holes in your recovery which will point accurately to deficiencies in your backup procedures. 8. when the OS is updated and you want to go there see 3 above, again.
do a full recovery from one of the USB hard-drives. Currently, I can re-install 8.1 out of the box, overlaying my data, point to a YAST backup, do a full recovery, and everything comes back and works perfectly. When I upgrade to a later version of SuSE (I've tried 8.2, 9.0, and 9.1) and try the same thing, a lot of my software no longer works after the recovery. Apparently, when you move to a later version, you lose the ability to use YAST for full recovery. So, I can either keep all of the software I currently have or I can move to a later version of SuSE, but I can't do both! I have an Oracle Enterprise database server on my Pro machine, which took tons of work to configure. I can't afford to lose it. This is what has been holding me up from moving forward. I am investigating some 3rd party software that I recently purchased that's supposed to a full recovery for you, but I'm not too sure about it after having worked with it for a few weeks. Is there a way to do this type of recovery strictly using some basic software that comes with my SuSE 8.1 Pro? Even if it's a multi-step process, if it would work, I'd like to know how to do it. Can you back up each high-level directory separately and
re-install SuSE from the installation CD, then then
recover each of those back while your system is running? Any suggestions greatly appreciated,
I would be reluctant to trust a 3rd party to get my particular backup and restore requirements correct. That's because I don't think about backup very much. Like you I focus on restore. Backup is only something you do so you can restore. I also test my restores so I can identify and plug holes.
Regards
mike
Greg Wallace
Mike: I can boot from a CD or a floppy, just not from an external drive. See Phil Savoie's post regarding G4U. Looks like it might be the solution to my problem. Greg W
On Mon, 2005-04-18 at 18:11 +1000, Mike Dewhirst wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a Dell Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk.
If the hard drive fails then you are up a gum tree. You need a BIOS revision which permits booting from floppy or CD or USB drive.
If you can do that maybe you can install SuSE on one of the USB drives even if you have to bootstrap from minimum system on floppy or CD and wait for the USB drive to be recognised?
I have 2 USB 2.0 ports and two USB
hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups. I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace the failed drive in the machine,
If my sole drive failed, would I replace it or replace the machine and start again?
I believe the only way to answer that question is with a screwdriver. Remove the drive before it fails and spend an hour or so contemplating the way forward. You are looking at a boat-anchor if you can't quickly recover - not your system but - your productivity.
You might spend days trying to get a Dell Opti.. to jump through clever booting hoops when it could be quicker and less expensive to ...
1. buy another machine 2. run them in parallel 3. gradually get one machine totally up-to-date - OS and apps 4. switch daily operations across to that machine 5. update the original machine, aggressively if you like 6. use one or other machine as a local backup for the other (note, you would still use USB drives for off-site backup) 7. every now and then unplug your operational machine and see if you
Since it sounds like you have -no- support contract with Oracle why not buy a one-two hour support session? If this machine is so critical to your operation you should have support anyway. Buy a tape drive and purchase some software like BackupEdge for backup/recovery (works excellent by the way for disaster recovery). Putting this off because you are afraid you won't get the right configuration on a new machine is not good and poor planning. What happens when the machine/hard drive dies without a backup? Then you are truly screwed without hope of -any- recovery possible. The last place I worked the company didn't want to purchase support till I told them no support no guaranteed recovery. I also asked them how much down time was worth, hundreds of employees not being able to work because one machine was out of commission. They finally say the light that support was cheaper than downtime. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998 "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge
Greg Wallace wrote: <snip>
I can boot from a CD or a floppy, just not from an external drive. See Phil Savoie's post regarding G4U. Looks like it might be the solution to my problem.
Ghost 4 Unix - I bookmarked that page :) Looks excellent. Very useful. But it doesn't get you up-to-date with your O/S and apps. For that you need a spare machine as a stepping stone AND (once it is up) as a testbed for recoveries. My 2.2c BTW and OT - I discovered some truly fabulous software if you have multiple machines on your desk. Check out http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ Mike
On Monday 18 April 2005 08:16 am, Ken Schneider wrote:
Since it sounds like you have -no- support contract with Oracle why not buy a one-two hour support session? If this machine is so critical to your operation you should have support anyway. Buy a tape drive and purchase some software like BackupEdge for backup/recovery (works excellent by the way for disaster recovery). Putting this off because you are afraid you won't get the right configuration on a new machine is not good and poor planning. What happens when the machine/hard drive dies without a backup? Then you are truly screwed without hope of -any- recovery possible. The last place I worked the company didn't want to purchase support till I told them no support no guaranteed recovery. I also asked them how much down time was worth, hundreds of employees not being able to work because one machine was out of commission. They finally say the light that support was cheaper than downtime.
Sound advice. While you're at it ... if the system is important to you, you should be running RAID. You can add a drive and create a mirror set to an existing system. Check out http://www.linux.com/howtos/Boot+Root+Raid+LILO-4.shtml . This is LILO specific, but the instructions for creating the mirror work just fine (NOTE: you do not need the new kernel). Once the mirror is built and you can boot to it, update grub on BOTH MBRs. From the GRUB + RAID Howto: 6. Setting up GRUB: (assuming you've already installed it) ------------------------------------------------------------------ # grub grub> root (hd0,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup (hd0) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 16 sectors are embedded. succeeded Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/grub.conf"... succeeded Done. grub> root (hd1,0) Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd grub> setup (hd1) Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd1)"... 16 sectors are embedded. succeeded Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd1) (hd1)1+16 p (hd1,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/grub.conf"... succeeded Done. grub> quit -- Louis Richards
On Monday, April 18, 2005 @ 5:41 AM, Mike Dewhirst wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
<snip>
I can boot from a CD or a floppy, just not from an external drive.
See
Phil Savoie's post regarding G4U. Looks like it might be the solution to my problem.
Ghost 4 Unix - I bookmarked that page :) Looks excellent. Very useful.
But it doesn't get you up-to-date with your O/S and apps. For that you need a spare machine as a stepping stone AND (once it is up) as a testbed for recoveries.
My 2.2c
BTW and OT - I discovered some truly fabulous software if you have multiple machines on your desk. Check out http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/
Mike
Mike: I have the SuSE Installation CDs for all versions between mine and 9.2 (I'll also buy the 9.3 CD soon). I have successfully upgraded to 9.1 in the past. Assuming I can do that again, I can upgrade to 9.1, use G4U to clone that disk to a drive on my USB hard-drive caddy and try to copy it back the other direction (or maybe just swap the drives from my computer and the USB drive) to see if it worked. If so, there's my backup. I would then go to 9.2 and repeat the process. If I get there and can verify the backup, I'm, so to speak, "in the money". Once I purchase 9.3, I'd just repeat the process again and be completely current. Greg Wallace
On Mon, 2005-04-18 at 18:11 +1000, Mike Dewhirst wrote:
Greg Wallace wrote:
I need to protect my system from a hard-drive failure. It's on a
Dell
Optiplex desktop machine with a single hard drive. This Dell only allows me to boot from the single internal disk.
If the hard drive fails then you are up a gum tree. You need a BIOS revision which permits booting from floppy or CD or USB drive.
If you can do that maybe you can install SuSE on one of the USB drives even if you have to bootstrap from minimum system on floppy or CD and wait for the USB drive to be recognised?
I have 2 USB 2.0 ports and two USB
hard drives with 120G each of storage on them, all available for backups. I am using app 16G in total on my 80G internal drive, so storage isn't an issue. I am currently running 8.1 Pro, my original SuSE version. It would seem to me that the only way to get my system back would be to replace
On Monday, April 18, 2005 @4:17 AM, Ken Schneider wrote: the
failed drive in the machine,
If my sole drive failed, would I replace it or replace the machine and start again?
I believe the only way to answer that question is with a screwdriver. Remove the drive before it fails and spend an hour or so contemplating the way forward. You are looking at a boat-anchor if you can't quickly recover - not your system but - your productivity.
You might spend days trying to get a Dell Opti.. to jump through clever booting hoops when it could be quicker and less expensive to ...
1. buy another machine 2. run them in parallel 3. gradually get one machine totally up-to-date - OS and apps 4. switch daily operations across to that machine 5. update the original machine, aggressively if you like 6. use one or other machine as a local backup for the other (note, you would still use USB drives for off-site backup) 7. every now and then unplug your operational machine and see if you
Since it sounds like you have -no- support contract with Oracle why not buy a one-two hour support session? If this machine is so critical to your operation you should have support anyway. Buy a tape drive and purchase some software like BackupEdge for backup/recovery (works excellent by the way for disaster recovery). Putting this off because you are afraid you won't get the right configuration on a new machine is not good and poor planning. What happens when the machine/hard drive dies without a backup? Then you are truly screwed without hope of -any- recovery possible. The last place I worked the company didn't want to purchase support till I told them no support no guaranteed recovery. I also asked them how much down time was worth, hundreds of employees not being able to work because one machine was out of commission. They finally say the light that support was cheaper than downtime.
-- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998
"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge
Ken: From Oracle, I have 1) a "Personal Edition" support license at $80 per/year, 2) "Software Updates" @ $60 per year, and 3) Product Support for $28/year. I had never worked in Oracle until I installed this software myself using only their Installation Guide, so I was as green as you could be. With a "Personal Edition" license, your support is minimal. You can post questions for their support people, but you often end up figuring out your problem before they do. There were a couple of times in my early going where they really saved my bacon, but those problems came due to buggy Linux Installation CDs, which there was no way I could figure out myself. The next level of support, that gives you the ability to get on-line support, costs about $25,000 / year! Since I'm using this software strictly for certification training (no commercial use allowed), I am allowed to use this cheapo license, but you get what you pay for. I took a quick glance at BackupEdge. Looks similar to G4U. Not sure if it allows backup directly to a USB connected drive as G4U supposedly does. I'll take a closer look at it here shortly. I don't have a network server. I use a router to connect my 2 machines (ones a Windoze). So, I need to be able to back up to a connected hardware device (right?). Thanks, Greg W
On Mon, 2005-04-18 at 12:26 -0800, Greg Wallace wrote:
Ken:
From Oracle, I have 1) a "Personal Edition" support license at $80 per/year, 2) "Software Updates" @ $60 per year, and 3) Product Support for $28/year. I had never worked in Oracle until I installed this software myself using only their Installation Guide, so I was as green as you could be. With a "Personal Edition" license, your support is minimal. You can post questions for their support people, but you often end up figuring out your problem before they do. There were a couple of times in my early going where they really saved my bacon, but those problems came due to buggy Linux Installation CDs, which there was no way I could figure out myself. The next level of support, that gives you the ability to get on-line support, costs about $25,000 / year! Since I'm using this software strictly for certification training (no commercial use allowed), I am allowed to use this cheapo license, but you get what you pay for. I took a quick glance at BackupEdge. Looks similar to G4U. Not sure if it allows backup directly to a USB connected drive as G4U supposedly does. I'll take a closer look at it here shortly. I don't have a network server. I use a router to connect my 2 machines (ones a Windoze). So, I need to be able to back up to a connected hardware device (right?).
It might backup to the usb device but will also backup to CD/DVD devices as well. The plus side is you can create a boot media (CD/DVD) for restore purposes. Boot to the CD and run BackupEdge to restore to a new disk and simply reboot to a running system. I believe you can buy a non-commercial use licence for around $90US. The download non-crippled version can be used for 60 days for testing. -- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998 "The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge
On Mon, 2005-04-18 at 12:26 -0800, Greg Wallace wrote:
Ken:
From Oracle, I have 1) a "Personal Edition" support license at $80 per/year, 2) "Software Updates" @ $60 per year, and 3) Product Support for $28/year. I had never worked in Oracle until I installed this software myself using only their Installation Guide, so I was as green as you could be. With a "Personal Edition" license, your support is minimal. You can post questions for their support people, but you often end up figuring out your problem before they do. There were a couple of times in my early going where they really saved my bacon, but those problems came due to buggy Linux Installation CDs, which there was no way I could figure out myself. The next level of support, that gives you the ability to get on-line support, costs about $25,000 / year! Since I'm using this software strictly for certification training (no commercial use allowed), I am allowed to use
On Mon, 2005-04-18 at 2:42 PM, Ken Schneider wrote: this
cheapo license, but you get what you pay for. I took a quick glance at BackupEdge. Looks similar to G4U. Not sure if it allows backup directly to a USB connected drive as G4U supposedly does. I'll take a closer look at it here shortly. I don't have a network server. I use a router to connect my 2 machines (ones a Windoze). So, I need to be able to back up to a connected hardware device (right?).
It might backup to the usb device but will also backup to CD/DVD devices as well. The plus side is you can create a boot media (CD/DVD) for restore purposes. Boot to the CD and run BackupEdge to restore to a new disk and simply reboot to a running system. I believe you can buy a non-commercial use licence for around $90US. The download non-crippled version can be used for 60 days for testing.
-- Ken Schneider UNIX since 1989, linux since 1994, SuSE since 1998
"The day Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is probably the day they start making vacuum cleaners." -Ernst Jan Plugge
Thanks for the info. I've been hacking around some more with this Storix software I bought and, now that I've figured some things out, it looks like it does that exact same thing. It was $70 so it was a bit pricier. They do have on-line support and their support people have finally gotten me to understand how to operate it. I still might want to check out BackupEdge. For what I'm trying to protect, spending another $50 to check out the competition wouldn't seem to me to be too much to spend. It would also appear that G4U Version 2 does the exact same thing. And it's FREEWARE! I'll probably download it and check it out also. Between these 3, I think I'll find a good solution. I can still restore my 8.1 with YAST, so I'll test going to 9.1 (which I've successfully done before) and then try restores. Worst case is I have to re-install 8.1 out of the box and do a YAST recovery. Once I can successfully restore 9.1, I'll move on to 9.2 and then 9.3. From what I read on the list, I get the impression that 9.1 to 9.2 can be tricky. Thanks, Greg W
When I update a machine I do a clean install. this one is 9.1 and likely soon 9.2 or 9.3 depending upon when my DVD arrives and the early bug reports for 9.3. Its faster and safe. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/
participants (6)
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Carl William Spitzer IV -
Greg Wallace -
Ken Schneider -
Louis Richards -
Mike Dewhirst -
Phil Savoie