Subject: Re: backup up, ghosting a Winxp machine
From: Jamie Hushower (hushower@ak.net)
Date: Fri Oct 03 2003 - 15:07:45 AKDT
This may not help you, but perhaps someone can take it a bit further or even
offer me some suggestions...
I have not had luck doing what you desire- initiating the backup from a
Linux computer with the Windows computer acting as the remote host. I do the
reverse. However, the issue I have run into when backing up entire drives is
a file size limitation on the ext3 file system. I have several old Win95
computers with 1.2GB drives that I backup by booting Rescue Linux, Knoppix,
or some other bootable CD distribution with SMB tools. Once booted, I mount
a remote Linux share (or any SMB share for that matter) to hold the backup
image. I then type "cat /dev/hda | gzip -c > /mnt/file.iso" where the hda is
whatever drive I am backing up and /mnt is where the remote SMB share is
mounted. That works great for data that can be compressed down to 2GB or
less, but anything larger causes a filesystem error. That is obviously a
problem on a WinXP box with a 40GB hard drive with a single partition. Does
anyone know of a way to increase the allowable file size on ext3? Any way to
reverse that process to meet Jim's needs?
P.S. To restore the image, boot Knoppix, mount the remote SMB share and type
"cat /mnt/file.iso | gunzip > /dev/hda". Incidentally, as this can be done
to partitions as well as entire drives, I insure that my Linux servers have
root partitions of less than 2GB and back them up this way.
-Jamie
_____________________________________
Jamie Hushower
Computer Consultant
Rent-A-Geek
223-9136
----- Original Message -----
From: "James Dory" <jdory@gci.net>
To: <jonr@destar.net>
Cc: <aklug@aklug.org>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 10:26 AM
Subject: Re: backup up, ghosting a Winxp machine
>
>
>
> jonr@destar.net wrote:
>
> >>Jim, you could always mount the XP box on one of your linux boxen and
back
> >>it up that way. Or you could install partimage and make a bootcd and
back
> >>it up over the network to your server.
> >>
> >>Jon
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
> Jon, Thanks for the reply.
>
> This is what I was wondering if could be done.. mount the XP box from
> the linux box and maybe use dd or something. I've been asked if it were
> possible to back up XP boxes through the linux one without having to do
> anything on the XP boxes. I've sort of given up on it but if it is
> possible, and perhaps as easy as some kind of mount command syntax, then
> perhaps I will hit google again and see what I can find. I've tried
> smbmount but don't know the command well enough to make it work or know
> if it will work. The documents always assume more knowledge than I have.
>
> cheers, Jim
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2a23 : Fri Oct 03 2003 - 15:05:10 AKDT