Hello guys, I am so glad I found this website...

We need your help...  I am working in a food company in the south part of Chile (South America).  We process frozen food.   Close to 2 years ago a guy from US came to do his intern and he did a very nice application to control the speed on 5 different motors.  The computer is been working very good since then but we are very scary of a failure.  

We tried to contact the guy but we have not find him yet, he moved to Europe to complete his PHD or something.  So we are stuck.

Anyway, the computer's OS and the application are in linux.  The hard drive si 60GB and has 2 partitions.   We would like to copy (clone) the whole hard drive into another hard drive (to keep it as backup) but we do not have any other computer under linux, and we do not know how use it.  

Do you guys know how to back it up into a new 60GB HD ?  

I was reading some and I was wondering if I could connect only both hard drives (brand new and the linux one) in a motherboard with a CD/DVD unit and run the boot CD or DVD and make the clonning ?  Will ghost 10 do that ?  

I have not buy any software yet, so which one would you recommend me ?

Thanks in advance,

George

wrote on Dec 16^th, 2006 at 7:50pm:

"... the computer's OS and the application are in linux.  The hard drive si 60GB and has 2 partitions.   We would like to copy (clone) the whole hard drive into another hard drive (to keep it as backup) but we do not have any other computer under linux, and we do not know how use it..."

My immediate notion, and certainly not well thought out, is to use the Windows Preinstalled Environment - preferably from a BartPE/Reatogo-X-PE CD, but the installation CD for either Norton Ghost 10 or Norton Save & Restore would work - to perform a legacy Norton Ghost "disk-to-disk" Clone with Version 8.2.
The destination HDD could reside: (1) internally as a SLAVE; or (2) in an external enclosure kit with the MASTER HDD being the LINUX source in either case.

I am highly confident of every aspect of this approach except for the handling of the boot sector in general.  Since a WIN PE CD can function even in the absence of any HDD, I cannot see where there would be any conflict with the LINUX OS.

Bear in mind that Norton Ghost Ver 8.2 is a "cold-imaging" product that runs in WIN PE, and is not a "hot-imaging" product like Norton Ghost 9, Norton Ghost 10, nor Norton Save & Restore which are all derivatives of PowerQuest Drive Image 7.n.

EP :'(

Pescador thanks for your help...

Following your advice my plan will be connect both HD's to the motherboard's IDE1, the linux one as master and the brand new as slave, on the IDE2 I will connect the CD/DVD as master.  

Then I will boot using the installation CD for Norton Ghost 10 and follow the disk-to-disk instructions...  What do you think ?

I hope everything is going to be OK or else, we will lose the software and they a very good engineer, me... je je je

Will Norton Ghost write or change anything on the linux HD during the process ???  I am very, very scary about this linux OS

Thanks again

tapujo

After hooking up the HDD's as you have stated, boot from the Ghost 10 Installation Disc, once you reach the main opening screen, select *Recover* from the side tabs, then select *Recover using a legacy Ghost image*.  This will open Ghost32 v8.2--the 32-bit version of Ghost that only runs under a Windows environment, but resembles the DOS version of Ghost.

You would select *Local > Disk > to Disk*, select the Linux drive as the source and the new HDD as the destination.

After cloning, exit the Ghost program and the Ghost 10 Recovery Environment--shut down the system.  Remove the original Linux HDD, put the newly cloned HDD in the Linux original position.  Re-boot to test the results of the clone!

If it does not boot--then replace the new HDD with the old one, which should boot fine as usual--and then we will need to see if there are troubleshooting options we can try at that point!


Quote:

I hope everything is going to be OK or else, we will lose the software and they a very good engineer, me... je je je

As long as you are very careful to select the correct drive as source and the correct drive as destination, Ghost should not cause any harm (it just would not do to copy your new empty HDD to the Linux HDD--very bad form!).  The master HDD on the primary channel (IDE1) should be listed first in the list of HDD's when selecting the source--and the slave HDD should be listed second in the list of HDD's.  That first HDD should be disk #1 and the slave HDD should be disk #2.  If the new HDD was slightly bigger, like a 80 GB HDD, then the size difference would make the choice obvious!  If you must use the same size HDD for the clone, but happen to have another HDD of different size to put in the system long enough to confirm which HDD is listed first and which is listed second--you can be more confident in the choices you are making!

Let us know how it goes--questions?

wrote on Dec 16^th, 2006 at 10:54pm:

"... my plan will be connect both HD's to the motherboard's IDE1, the linux one as master and the brand new as slave, on the IDE2 I will connect the CD/DVD as master..."

Just remember to avoid rebooting following the cloning procedure with both HDDs still connected.


wrote on Dec 16^th, 2006 at 10:54pm:

"... I will boot using the installation CD for Norton Ghost 10 and follow the disk-to-disk instructions..."

Just remember that the keyword for you with Norton Ghost Ver 8.2 in the WIN PE will be legacy.


wrote on Dec 16^th, 2006 at 10:54pm:

"... Will Norton Ghost write or change anything on the linux HD during the process ???..."

To the very best of my admittedly limited knowledge - no.

EP :'(

The best way to backup a Linux hard drive is to simply tar the entire filesystem up and then save the archive to a safe place.  

Here are some commands:

login as the root user
cd /
tar -czfpw backup.tar.gz /

At a command prompt, type "man tar" to see what all those flags are doing for you.

You can also use Ghost in DOS mode if your filesystem is either ext2 or ext3, which it most likely is.

Tapujo, note that Ghost 10 supports “Linux Ext2, Linux Ext3, and Linux swap partitions” (see page 24 in Norton Ghost 10.0 User’s Guide).

Thanks for your help guys...

I am waiting for a big clearance we will have in 25 days due to general maintenance and everything will stop.  I will be able to make the backup at that time...

Any other advice or caution are more than welcome..

Thanks again

wrote on Dec 18^th, 2006 at 12:55pm:

"... Any other advice or caution are more than welcome..."

If the health of the MASTER LINUX HDD is truly as precious as it seems to be, then you really should consider making more than one CLONE of it once you have performed the first iteration to your total satisfaction.  Perhaps the second spare HDD should be stored offsite.

EP :'(

Hi tapujo,

Make a bootable CD of G4U, boot using it in DOS & clone.

That way you shall have an exact bit by bit clone.

Hope it helps.

Regards!

tapujo

Couple new resources to consider:

Ghost compatibility with Linux

Cannot start Linux with GRUB boot loader after restoring an image of a disk or partition