[ale] there and back again (an HP laptop saga)

[Preston Boyington]

Paul Cartwright wrote:
<snipped>
> I have a dvd-burner on the laptop..

easy answer is to check to see if all the files will fit onto a DVD.  if
so then fire up your choice of CD/DVD creation software and burn the
files as DATA to the disc.  being paranoid i made a few copies so
basically it was "rinse, wash, repeat" for me.

later if your drive gets hosed you can create a partition the same size
and copy over the files from the created DVD.  heck, you might be able
to run them from DVD, but i haven't tried that.

> I used clonezilla to copy the erstore partition to my USB stick. Now I have a 
> folder on the USB with a bunch of files like:
> 
<snipped file list>
> now what?
> 

basically same as above with the exception of your now using Clonezilla
as the middleman.  if something were to happen to your Restore partition
(it's FAT32 most likely and probably houses exe files so a virus _could_
possibly get to it) then you can use Clonezilla to put things back
exactly as they were at the time the image was created.

i have a (mirrored) folder of nothing but Clonezilla images for all my
netbooks, laptops, computers, and even a few from friend's machines that
i routinely have to help with.  it's empowering to be able to restore a
system in just a few minutes (NTFS takes MUCH longer BTW) after i decide
to test some new distro on a whim or do a massive update that botches my
X-server/kernel/wallpaper... (you get the idea).

Oh, for those that want to play with Clonezilla, be aware that it
creates an exact copy of your partitions so it might be a good idea to
move that massive John Tesh music collection off the drive before
backing it up.  Otherwise it will take longer since there are more files
to parse.

-- 

Arrant Drivel - really, it's just trash...
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Where the road takes me - a highwayman's perspective
http://www.prestonboyington.com/