Re: [cobalt-users] Cloning the Hard drive in a RaQ4

[Dmitry Alexeyev <dmi_a@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Dmitry,
>
> Does Partition Image write the partition table back to a drive, or do
> you have to do that first, before you restore?

Partimage works only with filesystems (partitions), it doesn't touch 
partition table in any ways. So, if you want to backup your /home 
partition, you back up /dev/hda4, and if it broke, you restore 
/dev/hda4 from dump. 

It could be done remotely, which is very useful. It connects to it's  
server with SSL, so it is also secure. 

> Does the new drive need to be the same size as the saved drive?

If you want to restore a partition you create an empty partition with 
the same size, OR you create & restore the whole hard disk, and yes, it 
must have the same size. It's VERY handy on raqs, and very handy on 
home experimental machines, I save and restore my home box 2-3 times a 
week to its status quo (kinda OS Restore) 

Partitions could be created/resized with parted.

RPMs are here: 
http://www.cobaltsupport.com/partimage-0.6.3-cs1.i386.rpm
http://www.cobaltsupport.com/partimaged-0.6.3-cs1.i386.rpm

You can install them using rpm: 

# rpm -Uvh http://www.cobaltsupport.com/partimage-0.6.3-cs1.i386.rpm

And if you need partimage server (to save/restore partitions remotely): 
# rpm -Uvh http://www.cobaltsupport.com/partimaged-0.6.3-cs1.i386.rpm

Both packages are linked statically, so you need no additional packages 
or libraries. 

>
> If you use a larger drive can you enlarge the partitions?


It could be done after restore using parted, it resizes partitions 
nicely. One of the best its feautures I should mention that it restores 
removed partitions from hard drive, which saved me already a couple of 
times :) 

> Thanks.
>
> Jeff

P.S.: From README: 
Partition Image is a Linux utility which saves partitions in the ext2fs, 
reiserfs, fat16, and fat32
formats an image file. Only used blocks are copied to save the space and 
to increase the speed.
The image file can be compressed, in gzip, or bzip2 formats, and can be 
splitted into
small files to be copied on floppies (1,44 MB, ZIP, ...).
Then, the partition can be restored if there is a problem on the 
partition (file system error,
virus, error in data, ...), from the image file. It can also be used to 
install many identical PCs with
the same hardware. You just have to install an only PC, and you can copy 
the linux
partitions to all others.

WBR,
Dmitry