Partimage

 It can be used with any "live' distribution but two are most popular:

• Knoppix is the most tried and true "live" distribution" attractive to both beginner and experienced Linux users as it boots into GUI. It has amazing ability to detect even the most obscure hardware. Knoppix gives you GUI tools for nearly any task you want to perform, and includes applications for every imaginable task. You're not limited to rescue operations, but you get a complete distribution with productivity applications.
• SystemRescueCD SystemRescueCD attractive to hard-core Linux users. Requires good Linux knowledge (Knoppix, see below,  is much more user friendly). 

  SystemRescueCD  is based on Gentoo to there is some learning curve for Red Hat and Suse users.  In addition to Partimage which is free analog of Ghost it contains several utilities that allow you to manage and edit your hard drive partitions

  • GNU Parted and QTParted)
  •  a partition table backup and restore utility (Sfdisk)
  •  various file system tools that allow you to format, resize and edit existing partitions on your hard drive.

  While this mini-distribution is pretty primitive in comparison with Knoppix it is explisidly designed to serve as a rescue disk. 

Old News

Backing Up Using Symantec Ghost

I am using an IBM ThinkPad i1483 with an 11.5 gig. Hdrive, 192 Mgs. of Ram,  Dual-boot using Win/98 on a 2.72 Gig partition(hda1)
and Caldera eDesktop 2.4 on the remaining 9 Gigs.

The Linux partitions are:

                                                /dev/hda5              ext2                      15.2 mb.            /boot
                                                /dev/hda6              ext2                      2.90 Gig.           /
                                                /dev/hda7              swap                     133  mb.           swap
                                                /dev/hda8              ext2                       994 mb.            /home
                                                /dev/hda9              ext2                      1.48 Gig.           /opt
                                                /dev/hda9              ext2                      2.73 Gig.           /usr/local

Outline:
    1) Basic Instructions
    2) Some problems....sometimes.
    3) Personal observations

Basic Instructions:
1) Using Windows create the 2 floppy boot disks needed for using Ghost 2001. One if you store your backup on a CDR...the other if you leave your partition backups in a Windows folder.

2) Clean up your Linux system, getting it to where you feel it's perfect.

3) Choose the appropriate floppy, insert and reboot. Once the floppy loads, the Ghost 2001 DOS window appears. You will be given a choice of using "Disk" (for systems with separate harddrives) or "Partition".

4) Now simply go to your ext2 Linux partions and copy each one individually to a Windows folder on your C drive.  I make it easy on myself and name each copy with a name that corresponds to the partition I am copying. Ghost sees each partition as a number that corresponds to the initial Windows partition which is "1". This means your first Linux partition to copy (hda5) becomes "2" in Ghost's eyes. So I name my hda5 backup Linux2.GHO and send it to a Windows folder. When I am through creating the backups I have files numbered Linux2.GHO through Linux7.GHO. Then copy these files to a CDR.  If you do not own a CDR then simply leave these files on your Windows partition.

5) Once you have decided its time to reinstall your backed-up Linux system, simply insert the appropriate floppy and reboot. Once the Ghost window appears go into the Windows folder (or CDR) and reinstall each partition individually. Remember this.......each partition will be COMPLETELY  OVERWRITTEN !  You will be brought back to the pristine Linux system you backed up.

 Some Problems....Sometimes:
Having  used this process about 10 times so far (I really screw up my system  a lot) I had, in the beginning , noticed that Ghost had a problem copying ALL the Linux files. Sure enough, at the Symantec website , this problem was verified. They said they are working on it. Using  "Kpackage" I checked which files were missing from the newly installed LInux system. After an hour or so I discovered the following RPMS would have to be installed from my eDesktop 2.4 CDRom:
                                                                                ncurses-4.2-6.i386.rpm
                                                                                perl-5.005_03-6.i386.rpm
                                                                                sh-utils-1.16-7.i386.rpm
                                                                                tcl-8.0.4-1.i386.rpm
                                                                                tclx-8.0.4-1.i386.rpm
                                                                                tk-8.0.4-1.i386.rpm
                                                                                unzip-5.40-1.i386.rpm
                                                                                util-linux-2.9s-5.i386.rpm
                                                                                xanim-2.80.1-1.i386.rpm
                                                                                xmms-1.0.0-2.i386.rpm

I took these RPMS and copied them to my CDR disk (there's room) so as to make the reinstall a little faster. Installing these RPMS takes about 2 minutes. Once this is done your sytem runs perfectly. About SOMETIMES........I recently installed Linux (developer) and backed up using Ghost. This time after reinstalling the Ghost files .....everything was installed properly. I didn't have to install the above-mentioned RPMS. I do not have a clue as to why  happened.

For the people who have large amounts of data .........Ghost allows spanning and gives you the option of "no compression" , "normal compression" ,and "super compression". As I have only 700 Megs. of data (after deleting useless stuff)  I use normal compression ending up with 500 megs. to copy to my CDR disk. Plenty of room....yes?

One more problem......Once or twice , in the beginning , after reinstalling my Ghost files , Linux booted me to "runlevel 3". I guess my Xconfig file wasn't being read. All I did  was type "XF86Setup" and , WITHOUT CHANGING ANYTHING just clicked on "use existing config.file" and rebooted. This worked perfectly.  I must say this problem doesn't appear anymore. I do not know why. One more thing...mybackup installs in 17 mins. using a CDRom and about 29 mins. when copying from a Windows folder.
 

Personal Observations
This program is a God-send for me, as I am always experimenting and fouling up Linux. I am hoping Symantec someday allows these boot-disks to be created in Linux thereby bypassing Windows. Here's hoping........  The cost of a Ghost is a very expensive $71.95 (downloading from their site) . Any Reverse Engineers around? Yet I am very satisfied with the program and , especially for newbies, it is great timesaver. Good Luck.

Re: [myoss] NTFS-support under Linux?

• To: myoss@my-opensource.org
• Subject: Re: [myoss] NTFS-support under Linux?
• From: tai <tai@urd.spidernet.to>
• Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 22:09:09 -0500 (CDT)
• In-Reply-To: <3B4ACF79.10058.453485@localhost>
• Reply-To: myoss@my-opensource.org
• Sender: owner-myoss@my-opensource.org

On Tue, 10 Jul 2001, Nah Soo Hoe wrote:
> As far as I am aware, NTFS support under linux currently is for read-only. 
> The write part is not reliable and one is advised to use it at your own 
> risk.  Also there is a utility which one should run after doing a write to 

	Yes, not only within the ntfs partition, but also to the OS
itself!  Yes, you can crash the kernel that way (it's only understandable
as the driver sits in the kernel itself, so if anything happens to it,
it can kill the kernel).

> prevent massive data corruption when windows next mounts the ntfs 
> partition!!  See the current state of the linux NTFS project at 

	My personal experience is that you only copy a few files over
at a time, and do not copy directories!  cp -r /usr /ntfs will 
definitely give you heartburn.

	If you do not mind, go to www.sysinternals.com and pick up
the DOS version of an ntwrite driver from dos.  Or, if it's under
2 Gigs, try vmware using the ntfs partition as the drive for your
virtual NT box (with the included samba, you can "read/write" to
and from it.

> It is very difficult to do the write part as NTFS is a proprietary format, 
> and the proper/correct way to update it is known only to Microsoft and 

	Actually, it's not that proprietary.  If you have access to the VMS
API, you can do it.  I wonder if the NT kernel module writers are aware of
this.  People who have looked at the low level things (the actual disk
structures) have said that it looked very much like the VMS fs.  I also
wonder if VMS api is available anymore... :)

> While it is possible to reverse-engineer this will take a very long time 
> and the fact that MS changes it often makes it worse.

	Only between OS revisions :)

-Tai
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Linux using linux tools to install nt4