[ale] Backup Nirvana - bootable backup

Ron Frazier atllinuxenthinfo at c3energy.com
Sun Jan 23 16:25:59 EST 2011


Adrin,

Sorry for the delay in replying to this.  Thanks for your note.  I
looked up Lone Star on the web.  Assuming I found the right product, it
was $ 450. That's too much for my personal use.  I think Acronis
TrueImage was $ 80 or so the last time I bought it, which was a few
years ago.  I haven't found anything free that will do what Acronis
will.  There was one item on the UBCD which looked promising, HD Clone,
however, the free version didn't support USB drives.  I'll elaborate
more in another post, but I couldn't get anything on the UBCD to clone
my drive successfully to another drive connected to the USB port.  I did
get CopyWipe to work when both drives drives were connected to SATA.  At
the moment, Acronis is my tool of choice.

Sincerely,

Ron

On Mon, 2011-01-17 at 08:07 -0500, Adrin wrote:
> I have used Lone Star backup professionally for YEARS.  It is not a free
> product. But in my book the crash recovery for Linux and SCO can't be
> beat.  Or I should say I have not seen anything better.  Ihave replaced
> a clients crashing HDD, while they were having lunch.  Mind you the
> system was only a 40GB Drive at most. 
> 
> Sad thing is that for the same price you can't get a good windows crash
> recovery. 
> 
> I will check out the UBCD again.  I have used Acronis a lot to copy
> drives. 
> 
> On Sun, 2011-01-16 at 23:26 -0500, Ron Frazier wrote:
> > Hello all,
> > 
> > I wanted to pass along a preliminary report on an amazing backup
> > experience I had today.  I've been using PC's pretty much ever since
> > they were invented for consumer use, and backing them up most of that
> > time.  It's always a pain, and doing a restore is a royal pain even with
> > a backup.
> > 
> > My backup strategy has 2 parts:
> > 
> > 1) Never need one.
> > 
> > and, because "stuff" happens
> > 
> > 2) If you ever have to use one, have one and make sure the restore works
> > as easily and quickly as possible.
> > 
> > I do not subscribe to the back up the data and rebuild the system
> > theory.  There are literally hundreds of settings that I configure or
> > tweak during a computer install.  They relate to power, security,
> > wireless, applications, add-on's, preferences, etc.  The configuration
> > screens for Firefox alone have about 30 settings.  It may take me a
> > couple of days to set up a new system.  That's time I only want to spend
> > the first time, never again.
> > 
> > I want a backup that gets the system totally back to the way it was on
> > the day of the backup, including all settings, applications, and
> > operating systems.
> > 
> > For years, I've been using Acronis TrueImage to make images of my
> > Windows systems.  I have, on a few bad days, had to use them to restore
> > the systems, and it works, but it's still a pain.  The main disadvantage
> > of that is that you have to dig up the restoration software disc and
> > wait hours while the image is restored.
> > 
> > Last week, I ran the SMART long diagnostic on my HDD in my laptop and
> > found a couple of bad sectors.  I decided to go ahead and replace the
> > drive.  I bought a new same size one from Frys then RMA'd the old one.
> > (This is a 7200 RPM 2.5", and has hybrid platter and flash, which is
> > cool.)  I cloned the old data on the laptop to the new drive I bought,
> > then installed the drive.  In that case I connected both the new and old
> > drives directly to available SATA interfaces in my desktop machine.  I
> > used a program on the free CD from http://ultimatebootcd.com/ called
> > CopyWipe to make an exact clone of the drive.  When I installed the new
> > drive, it worked perfectly, both on the Windows and the Ubuntu side of
> > the dual boot fence (hence avoiding the need to use my old backup).  I
> > then used CopyWipe  to wipe the old drive before returning it to
> > Seagate.
> > 
> > I decided to use the replacement drive that Seagate sent me as a
> > bootable backup, which I'd never done before.  To prepare it, I put it
> > in a USB SATA enclosure.  This is the way I'd generally do a backup,
> > rather than removing the drives and installing them in the desktop
> > machine.  I booted an Acronis TrueImage CD at bedtime, attached the
> > spare drive to the USB port, and selected the clone option to clone the
> > laptop's drive over to the spare, then went to bed.
> > 
> > In the morning, the cloning operation was done.  I decided to simulate a
> > "recovery" and pretend that the laptop drive was dead.  I shut down the
> > machine, removed two screws from the HDD, and removed it.  I then slid
> > the spare drive that I'd cloned into the same slot, since it's an
> > identical size SATA drive.  I turned the machine back on and booted from
> > the spare drive.  Very shortly, I had my Windows running on the backup
> > drive as if nothing had happened.  (I know it's a Linux group.  Keep
> > reading.)
> > 
> > This was GREAT!  I had recovered my system using the BACKUP in 2
> > MINUTES!  Now, I still have to clone it once a week (or two or four),
> > but I think I can do that.  I don't like to leave the backup drive
> > attached lest a malfunction or virus in the target machine also trashes
> > the backup drive.
> > 
> > OK, now it gets interesting.  I decided to boot into Ubuntu.  Now, I
> > have the Windows boot loader as my primary boot screen, and that's set
> > to chain to Grub using a setup provided by using the EasyBCD program
> > http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 .  So, the Windows boot screen appears,
> > then I select Ubuntu, then Grub should appear.  It didn't appear.  It
> > locked up on something that said BootSector, I think.
> > 
> > Now, here's what's interesting.  Remember that I said I got a new hard
> > drive and cloned the original laptop drive on my desktop machine with
> > CopyWipe.  The drives were directly installed on SATA ports.  That drive
> > worked flawlessly when installed, including both the Windows and the
> > Ubuntu side of the fence.
> > 
> > However, the drive I cloned with Acronis TrueImage via the USB port
> > worked with Windows but not Ubuntu.  I have no idea why.  I have not
> > tried CopyWipe via USB yet.
> > 
> > In any case, I booted back into Windows, ran the EasyBCD program to
> > rebuild the link to Grub and set up the Windows boot screen, then booted
> > again.  I selected Ubuntu, then Grub appeared as it should, then I
> > selected the latest version, and TA-DA, Ubuntu is booted.
> > 
> > So, now I'm back in business on the SPARE drive.  Worst case scenario, I
> > can be back up and running after a drive failure, including Windows and
> > Linux, even having to tinker with the boot sequence, within 20 minutes.
> > And, I have EVERYTHING that I had configured before in the system as of
> > the date of the clone.  This is by far the best backup strategy I've
> > found.  I still have JungleDisk backing up the data online every 6 hours
> > in case there is a fire, flood, or theft, which kills my local backups.
> > Also, I would still have to restore the data created or altered since
> > the backup.
> > 
> > The main disadvantage, other than actually having to do the backups, is
> > that this takes one spare hard drive and enclosure for every clone you
> > want to make, for every computer.  However, I have enough hard drives
> > and enclosures on hand to clone 4 computers once.  Later, I hope to add
> > a 2nd clone of each.
> > 
> > If anyone else has had experience with bootable backup systems, please
> > post it.  If I get a chance to do further experiments, I'll post the
> > results.
> > 
> > By the way, the Jan 2011 issue of Linux Journal has a neat article about
> > CloneZilla.
> > 
> > Sincerely,
> > 
> > Ron
> > 

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT c3energy.com




More information about the Ale mailing list