I have been using tar to backup (for restore of) the directories under "/". I was able to use "tar -cvzpf /tar_ball_dir/file_name.tar.gz /sub_directories ...where sub_directories were bin, etc, home, lib media, opt, root, sbin, srv, tmp, usr, and var. But tar ran into problems with sys, dev, boot and proc. I was able to use "cp -v -p -R /sub_directories /non_compressed_dir/ ...where sub_directories were sys, dev, and boot. But cp ran into problems with proc. I remember some other archiving tool but cannot remember the name -- apparently it will back up the proc directory. Does anyone know the name of this archiving tool. I should probably be using it on all 4 files because it can also do compression. Thanks -- Ted