[wplug] Q: how to make image copy of disc to CD/DVD?

[Vanco, Don]

I didn't even think to mention it - but I back up my TiVo via some free
tools that image correctly - that might be a worthy consideration as
well.  Have backed up and restored (and expanded - but only the MFS
filesystem) several drives.  It is basically a tar piped through cut and
gzip (with goodies added for partitions of course).

>-----Original Message-----
>From: wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org 
>[mailto:wplug-bounces+don.vanco=agilysys.com at wplug.org] On 
>Behalf Of Jonathan S Billings
>Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 10:19 AM
>To: General user list
>Subject: Re: [wplug] Q: how to make image copy of disc to CD/DVD?
>
>
>Vanco, Don wrote:
>>>dd if=/dev/hda of=somefile.img
>> 
>> (snip)
>> 	I didn't mention this because I cannot remember the required
>> syntax, but there are decidedly portions of the system you 
>want to skip
>> - like /proc, other "live" components, etc.  
>
>Actually, /proc is not a filesystem on a real disk,  However, you are 
>right that it'll capture a running OS in a live state.  Services might 
>not start up correctly from a recovered disk, databases might 
>be caught 
>in mid-write, etc.
>
>Also, writing a 'dd' image to the same disk you are imaging 
>will *never* 
>work unless you are also compressing on the fly because the image size 
>will be bigger than the filesystem, and even then, the image will 
>contain a partial image of the image you are writing.
>
>'dd' isn't the best backup tool, since it copies every bit on 
>the disk, 
>regardless of whether the filesystem is using it or not.  If 
>you want to 
>get a copy of the *filesystem*, I suggest using the corresponding dump 
>program.  You could copy the dump files to a CD/DVD image, or 
>simply use 
>the 'restore' program to make a copy of the filesystem on the image.
>
>If you don't have a dump program for your filesystem, you 
>could also use 
>tar, rsync, pax, cpio, etc.  There are piles of open source tools that 
>were written for this purpose but I think it's best to stick to the 
>well-known tools that'll be around on nearly any unix/linux 
>system, like 
>the ones I've mentioned.
>
>
>-- 
>Jonathan S. Billings <billings at negate.org>