Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
Gerd50

Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by Gerd50 »

In the LMDE forum i quite often read, had to reinstall after an upgrade after i installed a new graphics driver, after i tried this
or that. Reinstall is not necessary if you Backup your system regularly.

qt4-fsarchiver is a gui version for the command line version fsarchiver. A howto for the cli version is available here:

http://www.fsarchiver.org/QuickStart

The gui version is available on sourceforge.net as deb packages and Live CD - http://sourceforge.net/projects/qt4-fsarchiver/files/

My version is an older one, german only. But in newer versions you can choose between german, english and russian. In order to
change the language go to "Einstellungen" -> "Basiseinstellungen" -> "Sprache" and choose Englisch or Russisch. Then hit the buttons "Einstellungen speichern" -> "Beenden" and restart qt4 to make en or ru effective. The same procedure you have to go, if you use
a Live CD.

The best way to work with qt4-fsa is, if you have two Ubuntu/Debian based systems installed. It also works with rpm based distros.
rpm packages are available here - http://sisyphus.ru/en/srpm/Sisyphus/qt4-fsarchiver/get -

If you don't have two Linux systems, at latest in order to restore partitions you need a Live CD. A Live Cd is available Ubuntu
Oneiric based:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/qt4-fsa ... s/Live-CD/

ukbrian produced a rescue CD based on SalineOS. Thanks for it Brian :D

http://lin.me.uk/qt4-fsarchiver/qt4-fsa ... -01-24.iso

Save Partitions

qt4-fsarchiver must be run as root. If you start qt4-fsa from your menu and the terminal don't open in order to type in
your password, open a terminal and start fsa with:

Code: Select all

sudo qt4-fsarchiver
You can save your mounted /root, /home and data partitions after a warning note. You can work with your mounted partition -
webbrowsing, writing etc. but you shouldn't install new apps and not use Dropbox if you don't want to loose datas!

In order to save a partition go to Existing Partitions and choose the partition you want to save. qt4-fsa can handle ext3, ext4
and btrfs partitions. Save the MBR is possible. If Grub is the bootloader the PBR must not be saved or restored. It is not safe to use
the gui at present for ntfs backup and it's not possible to save encrypted partitions.

Then go to Backup Directory and choose a folder where you want to store your backup. Next step is Name the backup
and after it's done hit Save Partition. After about 12 minutes the work should be done if you choosed gzip standard
compression.

Restore Partitions

It is not possible to restore mounted partitions. If you have two Linux installations, install qt4-fsa in both. Then restore the
unmounted partition from your running Operating System. If you don't have two OS's, use a Live System (CD/Stick) and restore
from there. It is possible to restore an fsa clone to any partition of your choice on your system. A clone restored to another
partition than it was backed up from, gets the UUID and Label from the origin partition.

Warning:
DataMan wrote:

I can shed some light on the duplicate uuid situation from "first hand experience".... :shock:

I recently cloned through fsarchiver my production Mint Debian "/" & "/home" to new partitions. I re-directed a dedicated boot to the cloned install as well as a dedicated boot to the original install (dedicated GRUB legacy boot loader). It was driving me bonkers as I was randomly booting to one or the other. I knew this as I had set different distinct backgrounds in each ops.

So the long and the short of it is... if you crave a little bit of uncontrolled excitement in your life, definitely clone a complete Mint Debian to another partition and enjoy the uncertainty of where you will end up booting to.

:lol:

-DataMan
What means, don't forget to format the origin partition, if you restored to another!

In order to restore first mark Restore Partition with fsarchiver. In Existing Partitions choose the one to restore. In Backup Directory go to the folder where your backup is stored and choose the backup file you want to restore. For example LMDE-date.fsa. Then hit Partition restore.

Normally it's enough to backup once per week. But if you read in our forums the testing or sid breakage threads

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=198&t=67502

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=198&t=70230

and a dist-upgrade is noted as suspect, it's a good idea to create a fresh backup before you update.

For me sometimes it's fun to break my system with a suspect update and then try to fix it. If i don't find a fix, with a backup
i'm always on a safe side. I wish you fun with LMDE Testing or Sid and Backups :)

Note: if you can't backup a mounted partition and you don't have a second Linux OS with qt4-fsa installed, use a Live System!

Warning: if you use this program, and you use symlinks to the distro you are backing up, then nothing is going to work again until
you remount the partition because qt4-fsa will unmount the distro you are backing up and remount it to /tmp. I also VERY seriously suggest that if you use Dropbox across multiple distros that you switch it off before you start the backup and only switch it on again after you have remounted the partition.

Compressionoverview:

Mode/Level..................Compression Rate...................Needed Time
___________________________________________________________________
lzo..............................2.141.695.938 Byte...(1.99 GiB)...11 min 12 Sek
gzip fast.......................1.822.273.889 Byte...(1.7 GiB)...12min 11 Sek
gzip standard................1.695.248.687 Byte...(1.58 GiB)...12 min 49 Sek
gzip best......................1.688.266.397 Byte...(1,57 GiB)...23 min 52 Sek
bzip2 fast.....................1.660.019.964 Byte...(1,55 GiB)...26 min 11 Sek
bzip2 good....................1.637.605.954 Byte...(1,53 GiB)...28 min 23 Sek
lzma fast......................1.597.604.088 Byte...(1,49 GiB)...19 min 19 Sek
lzma medium................1.480.208.664 Byte...(1,38 GiB)...59 min 4 Sek
lzma best.....................1.461.640.213 Byte...(1,36 GiB)...67 min 0 Sek

Video help produced by ukbrian

Low resolution size 29MB http://lin.me.uk/mint/videos/qt4-fsarchiver-low-res.mp4
Low resolution zipped size 21 MB http://lin.me.uk/mint/videos/qt4-fsarch ... mp4.tar.gz

High resolution size 133 MB http://lin.me.uk/mint/videos/qt4-fsarchiver.mp4
High resolution zipped size 117 MB http://lin.me.uk/mint/videos/qt4-fsarchiver.mp4.tar.gz

If the Debian 6.0 package complaines about liblzma.so.2 not found, run:

Code: Select all

ln -sf /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5.0.0 /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Written with a little help by my friend YouTranslate and a lot of help by viking777. Thank you.

A big thanks to the developers for this useful and easy to use program.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 51 times in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
xircon

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by xircon »

Gerd, thanks for that.

The problem I am having with 0.6.12 is:

Code: Select all

sudo qt4-fsarchiver 
src/oper_save.c#960,filesystem_mount_partition(): partition [/dev/sda6] is mounted read/write. please mount it read-only 
and then try again. you can do "mount -o remount,ro /dev/sda6". you can 
also run fsarchiver with option '-A' if you know what you are doing.
removed /home/molly2/backup/test-17-12-2011.fsa
It will not back up any more, running the mount command just says it is busy. I only have LMDE installed.
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

Very interesting tutorial that Gerd - thank you for providing it. It was so interesting in fact that as I type this I am backing up the partition I am working in - something I have been longing to be able to do ever since I left Windows and Acronis.

My big problem with this program though is confidence. I have used Clonezilla for almost as long as I have been using Linux and I trust it so much that I don't even bother error checking the backups that it makes any more, because I know from experience that if the backup completes successfully then it will restore successfully also, it has simply never failed me. Of course with fsarchiver I have no such depth of knowledge to provide me with any confidence at all. Backing up is one thing but a backup that will not restore is just a waste of disk space. Is it possible that you can reassure me that it will perform as well as I know Clonezilla does?

How about multi booting? I am pretty sure that you are multi booting, so I guess it must work for you with that. I note it has a 'save pbr' setting in the gui. I haven't had time to read any help files yet so I am not sure if I should use this or not. All my grub installations except for one are on the partition boot record not the mbr so I guess the answer is that I should use it, but guessing is not a good idea when it comes to backups - do you use this setting?

Then there is the question of speed. I have already done a Clonezilla backup today of my LMDE partition and that took about 6 minutes using lzma compression. I set that up in fsarchiver and it promised to take 85 minutes to complete? I stopped that backup and did another with 'gzip fast' compression, it took 21 minutes to complete which is quite a long time, but then again I have the use of the machine in the meantime and with Clonezilla I don't - I am sure that must slow it down a bit. Do you do 'live' backups or do you do them from a different distro to get your 12 minute backup? I also notice you can choose the number of cores to use for the backup as well, I left it at the default 1, do you use it with multi cores enabled?

Anyway thanks again for the tutorial, very interesting. I will continue to experiment with this tomorrow, but if you can answer any of the questions I have posed here in the meantime I would be grateful.
Gerd50

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by Gerd50 »

@Steve, i don't know why you can't backup your mounted LMDE. Because you need a Live System in order to restore a backup
you could use SystemRescueCd - http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page - which contains qt4-fsa in order to create backups and
restore them.

@Viking, a lot of questions you have :) Ok, i'll try answers. I use qt4-fsa since Squeeze went stable. As long as LMDE squeeze
was freezed i never backed my system. But when the wheezy update flood came in, i at once installed fsa. You say you trust
Clonezilla and if a backup finished successfully, restore will be too. The same for me here, i never had a fsa clone that didn't
work.

You are right, i use a multi boot system. But no pbr, grub is on mbr. So i never tried to save a pbr partition. It's reported in my
favorite wiki - http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/qt4-fsarchiver - it works to save pbr. The people there never publish articles that are
not tested.

Speed, i always use a running system in order to backup another with gzip standard compression. That takes about 12 minutes
as reported in the ubu wiki. Reported times are:

lzo (keine Unterstufen) 2.141.695.938 Byte (1.99 GiB) 11 min 12 Sek
gzip fast 1.822.273.889 Byte (1.7 GiB) 12min 11 Sek
gzip standard 1.695.248.687 Byte (1.58 GiB) 12 min 49 Sek
gzip best 1.688.266.397 Byte (1,57 GiB) 23 min 52 Sek
bzip2 fast 1.660.019.964 Byte (1,55 GiB) 26 min 11 Sek
bzip2 good 1.637.605.954 Byte (1,53 GiB) 28 min 23 Sek
lzma fast 1.597.604.088 Byte (1,49 GiB) 19 min 19 Sek
lzma medium 1.480.208.664 Byte (1,38 GiB) 59 min 4 Sek
lzma best 1.461.640.213 Byte (1,36 GiB) 67 min 0 Sek

Possibly backup a mounted system has the consequence of less performance. But as i said, i never tried it. I'm well with
gzip standard compression in a running system in order to backup another.
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

Thanks again for those detailed answers to my questions. I have been experimenting this morning and thought you would like to know how I got on so here goes.

I didn't want to risk messing up my LMDE partition as that is my main distro so I first installed qt4-fsarchiver onto my Crunchbang partition then did a live backup of that partition, it is a smaller partition than LMDE, but this time was done quite quickly (8 mins)with 2 cpu's in use. I also elected to back up the partition boot record.

With this complete I returned to the LMDE partition and used gparted to format the Crunchbang partition. I then used the archiver to restore the partition to its original position. I then rebooted, and Crunchbang came up straight away with no errors, it wasn't even necessary to replace the pbr (in fact I did try to do this but got a warning message that the backup location did not match the backup file, so cancelled it).

What was interesting was that when I opened my browser (which was in use during the live backup) it asked me if I would like to continue the last session, and when I clicked yes, it opened the pages that were in use whilst the backup was in progress. Quite impressive I thought :D

So I think you have a convert here, I like it, although it is difficult to judge fully just on one usage, but a good start anyway.

My next task is to try and install it onto my two rpm based partitions. There don't seem to be any rpm's around for it so it will have to be done from source, and that probably won't be easy as it has quite a few dependencies (I had to manually install about 8 of those to get it to work on Crunchbang). Anyway I will give it a go. And then if I can manage to get it onto my Parted Magic usb key (it already has the command line version on it) then I will be covered for all eventualities.

I also need to have a look for some documentation for it online. The ubuntu wiki you linked to is in German so not much use to me, but I am sure it must have an English equivalent somewhere.

Should keep me busy for a while :lol:
Gerd50

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by Gerd50 »

Thanks for your report Viking. Good to know it works for you as reported in the ubu wiki. The wiki i linked in order to show
there is a background of knowledge for the HowTo i wrote. And no, there is no equivalent to it. It is unique and worth gold for
german Ubuntu/Debian users.

You wrote to save /pbr works, but fsa decided there is no need to restore it. That's good news, i added /pbr as savable to the
HowTo. I was not sure it will work, because i can‘t test it. Therefore I did not mention it. Thanks for your test.

qt4-fsa rpm packages are available here - http://sisyphus.ru/en/srpm/Sisyphus/qt4-fsarchiver/get -

(after i wrote this and hit submit, the forums server went down. I hope it wasn‘t me who crashed mysql :lol: )

@Steve, i tried to find out, why you can't save your mounted LMDE. The only possible reason i can find is, do you have the partition verschlüsselt? I don't know the english word for it, maybe coded?
xircon

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by xircon »

Gerd,

Do you mean "encrypted"? No, it is just a normal ext4.

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9a784ebb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048      206847      102400   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2   *      206848    20686847    10240000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3        20686848   143566847    61440000    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       143568894   976771071   416601089    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5       143568896   356144984   106288044+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda6       356145152   453801983    48828416   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       453804032   469426175     7811072   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda8       469428224   938178223   234375000   83  Linux
/dev/sda9       938178560   976771071    19296256    b  W95 FAT32
I have posted a question on the sourceforge forum, but it is the first post there.

Steve
Gerd50

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by Gerd50 »

Yes, encrypted is the word i searched :)
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

Well installing archiver onto my rpm distros did indeed keep my busy for a while and as I thought, it was a true dependency hell, but I managed it anyway.

The only problem I have found since using it was the strange way in which the program behaves when backing up one distro from another, although I have to say that this is partly down to the way I use my computer (I make extensive use of symlinks across different distros), and partly down to a real dearth of help files for this program. I used 'google translate' to change the link that Gerd gave into English but really I might as well have just read it in German for all the sense it made after translation :lol: .

The way I noticed the behaviour I refer to above (undocumented as far as I can see) is that after backing up my LMDE partition from my Fedora install, I could no longer use Thunderbird. Now it just happens that I had problems with Tbird a few days ago and I thought I had solved them, but assuming I was wrong I started looking for the same causes that occurred last time. This was a frustrating waste of time. I later found out that the reason I could not use Tbird any more was that qt4-fsarchiver had unmounted the LMDE partition (and I subsequently found out that it remounts it under /tmp so why it doesn't just leave it mounted where it is I don't know) but the problem is that it does not remount it in the proper place when it is finished (/mnt/lmde64 in my case). This means that any symlinks that worked before it was unmounted, now don't - until I remounted my LMDE partition in the correct place. This behaviour had some unfortunate side effects with Dropbox as well (which also run through symlinks from one distro to the other) - like emptying my entire dropbox folder both locally and remotely (the symlinks running Dropbox led nowhere you see and I guess this is interpreted as removing all the files, that is what it did anyway :shock: )

So the lesson is, if you use this program, and you use symlinks to the distro you are backing up, then nothing is going to work again until you remount the partition. I also VERY seriously suggest that if you use Dropbox across multiple distros that you switch it off before you start the backup and only switch it on again after you have remounted the partition.

Would this stop me from using the program? Certainly not, the ability to run backups whilst continuing to work fairly normally would encourage me to backup more often I think and therefore in the end I would end up in a safer situation then using Clonezilla from a cd/usb key. Plus I wouldn't have to continually wrestle with the truly awful Clonezilla user interface, and that is a real bonus :D

Edit. I notice having posted this that Gerd managed to find some rpm files for the program - I couldn't :( Oh well too late anyway it is done now.
Gerd50

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by Gerd50 »

hmm, seems to make sense if i translate both articles

http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/fsarchiver
http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/qt4-fsarchiver

and build in your experiences? I tried to keep the HowTo simple, because with Linux sometimes there is too much stuff
to read. But backups i think is a must with LMDE and all available informations should be published?
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

Gerd50 wrote:hmm, seems to make sense if i translate both articles

http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/fsarchiver
http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/qt4-fsarchiver

and build in your experiences? I tried to keep the HowTo simple, because with Linux sometimes there is too much stuff
to read. But backups i think is a must with LMDE and all available informations should be published?
Backup/Disk Imaging solutions that are easy to use for a non-techie and also safe are something that have been missing for a long time in Linux, and this program goes a good way to making up that deficiency. But it does lack documentation. The problems re symlinks that I posted above should definitely be made more widely known - it isn't funny to see Dropbox remove 2600 files from your computer when you first start it up in the morning (including all my documents and photos) and that is exactly what happened, and I have been using Dropbox for ages and it has never happened before until I used qt4-fsarchiver. It is difficult to blame either program really, they are both doing what they are programmed to do, though if 'archiver' hadn't insisted in unmounting a partition that was already mounted and then mounting it somewhere else then this would not have occurred. Perhaps it needs an extra bit of logic built into it so that it asks itself "Is this partition already mounted?" If the answer is yes then just leave it where it is and carry out the backup instead of unmounting it and mounting it somewhere different.

Just my 10 cents worth. Maybe there is some reason it has to mount it under /tmp though I can't imagine what it is.

Edit. I just finished another experiment by doing the same backup of LMDE from Fedora, but this time I quit Dropbox before starting the backup then switched it on again after the backup was complete and the LMDE partition manually remounted. Now when I boot into LMDE there are no surprises, all my files remain intact, so I am fairly sure that the problem I described was caused by the interaction of the two programs along with my symlinks.
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

xircon wrote:Gerd, thanks for that.

The problem I am having with 0.6.12 is:

Code: Select all

sudo qt4-fsarchiver 
src/oper_save.c#960,filesystem_mount_partition(): partition [/dev/sda6] is mounted read/write. please mount it read-only 
and then try again. you can do "mount -o remount,ro /dev/sda6". you can 
also run fsarchiver with option '-A' if you know what you are doing.
removed /home/molly2/backup/test-17-12-2011.fsa
It will not back up any more, running the mount command just says it is busy. I only have LMDE installed.
I had a similar problem to this yesterday, strangely enough with /dev/sda6 as well (maybe it just doesn't like the number 6 :lol: ). I got the same answer from the mount command as well. In my case it went away after a reboot, but I won't insult you by asking if you have tried that :) .
I guess this must be a live backup that you are trying to do as you only have LMDE installed. I already tried a live backup of my LMDE and that is mounted rw (be a bit difficult to use if it wasn't) It worked fine, so I think that error message is spurious. My suggestion is that you try closing down any programs that run automatically (in my case dropbox was a huge problem though slightly different circs). But if you have something that requires or uses constant disk write access then that might be stopping it. Just have a look at all your running processes and try and think what it might be, shut down a few and try again, eventually you will find the culprit.
Live backups work for me, but it is really better to do as Gerd suggests and boot into a second distro or if you don't have one a live media.
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

Quick question for Gerd (or anyone else that knows the answer).

You linked to SystemRescuCD in your first post Gerd but having read that page it says that it has 'fsarchiver' in it not 'qt4-fsarchiver' .

Does it really have the gui version?

I normally use parted magic for rescue purposes and that already has the cli version, but if SysRecCD has the gui version I would download that instead, but if it doesn't I wont bother.
Gerd50

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by Gerd50 »

You are right SystemRescuCD also only has the cli version. I'll link to sourceforge for the qt4-fsa Live CD.

Edit: Viking, for now i added your warning to the HowTo concerning the dropbox and unmount remount /tmp stuff.
And i had to correct something with PBR. PBR only can be saved if Grub is not the bootloader. Grub is not supported.
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

PBR only can be saved if Grub is not the bootloader. Grub is not supported.
I don't understand that Gerd. I backed up the pbr without any problem and I am using grub. True enough I couldn't restore it, but then again I didn't need to.
Gerd50

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by Gerd50 »

I have some difficulties with these words from the ubu wiki:
Der oben erwähnte Partition Boot Record(PBR) sind die ersten 512 Bytes einer jeden Partition. In den PBR kann auch der Boatloader eingetragen werden. Grub unterstützt den PBR nicht, so dass bei Nutzung von Grub als Bootmanager der PBR nicht gesichert oder wiederhergestellt werden muss. Diese Option ist nur bei Verwendung von anderen Bootmanagern eventuell sinnvoll.
The underlinded sentence says, Grub doesn't support the PBR, if Grub is the bootmanager the PBR must not be saved or restored.

Edit: after i translated this sentence it's clear or? I write it into the HowTo like this.

Another thing is ntfs. If i understand right from what i read it's no problem to backup and restore ntfs partitions with the
cli version. But for the gui it's recommanded not to use it productive, because the funktion is not stable yet. Is somebody
around here who can test it? I can't, i have ext3/4 only.
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

Gerd. I passed the sentence about pbr to google translate but I am sorry to say that the English translation makes no sense to me .

Reference ntfs partitions. I successfully backed up and restored a small ntfs partition today with the gui, so that was successful. What was not successful though was that after backing up the original partition (and remounting it) it was empty - all the files had been deleted! So it was a good job that the restore worked! I think you can say that it is not safe to use the gui at present for ntfs backup.
Gerd50

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by Gerd50 »

If i read the german sentence today it also makes no real sense for me. ImTranslator gives me this:
Of the partition mentioned on top boat Record (PBR) there are the first 512 bytes of every partition. The Boatloader can be also put down on the PBR. Did not dig supported the PBR, so that with use of digging as a boat manager the PBR must not be protected or be restored. This option is perhaps sensible only by use of other boat managers.

Chinese or english makes no difference for me in this case :lol:

I think i'll only write - if Grub is the bootloader the PBR must not be saved or restored -

Thanks for the ntfs test :)
viking777

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by viking777 »

Sorry to keep bothering you about this Gerd, but I just tried the link to the live cd that you have posted above, and although it works I was surprised at how large it was for a single program. After I had put it onto a usb key and booted it, the reason became clear, what you get is a pretty well fully working version of Ubuntu with gnome-shell and qt4-fsarchiver as the first favourite in the dash. This in itself is not a problem, but what is a problem is that it is a German only version, no English on it anywhere (both Ubuntu and fsarchiver). Although I can't read a word of German, I can still just about use archiver from the usbkey, as the layout is the same as the English version I have installed on my computer so I know what to click, but if you haven't seen the interface before and you can't read German, then you would be completely lost.

So I think you maybe should make a note on your opening post to say that this live version is German only, or better still if you can find an English version (I couldn't) then include a link for that as well, it will save people downloading and burning something that they can't really use. Another thing you need to know if you are wanting to use archiver from the live cd is the sudo password for user "ubuntuuser" because it doesn't tell you, it just assumes that you know it. Anyway the password is 'ubuntu' . It may be in a help file somewhere, but sadly - for me - they are all in German so I couldn't read them anyway - never mind read them, I couldn't even find them as I don't know the German for 'help file' :lol:
ukbrian

Re: Backup/Restore Partitions with qt4-fsarchiver HowTo

Post by ukbrian »

Hi Gerd50, viking777 :D
I used Acronis for many years then r-drive for a time but for the last 2 years I've been using Macrium http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx

With the free version you can burn a Linux .iso that will restore your backups but I bought a copy :roll: and with that you get a windows 7 PE iso that will backup and restore your drives, partitions or MBR's.

But I don't want to boot into windows or boot from a CD to backup my partitions, I want to use fsarchiver (can the name be either fsarchiver or qt4-fsarchiver, it took me ages to find the .desktop file).

I've been playing with fsarchiver today and I backed up/restored a windows 7 partition and it got to 99% before it fell over, I had a macrium copy so it wasn't a problem. :D
There were 20 or so error messages in the terminal at the end but I was a bit pushed and I didn't save them sorry.

I also backed up a SalineOS partition and then restored/cloned it to a partition on a different drive.
When I blkid I had 2 partitions with the same UUID and LABEL which I expected as that's what other imaging software does.

Fsarchiver writes a .txt config/profile file as well as the archive file and I went looking at that. :D

Code: Select all

to be protected/secured partition: / (root system directory) 
Operating system: "Ubuntu 11.10"
Kernel: Linux 3.0.0-15-generic-pae i686 
Backup file name: 11-12-20-test-20-12-2011.fsa
Partition  name: sdb2
Partition type: ext4
UUID: e7c5d958-eb1c-4fa2-bf6b-d8f1a0471d02
Description: xubuntu-ssd
Partition size: 19,38 GB
Assignment of the partition: 12,21 GB
Assignment of the partition: 66 %
Compression: lzo
Approximate image file sizes: 5,61 GB
Other notes: 
If I change the values of "Partition name: sdb2" to "Partition name: sdc2"
and "UUID: e7c5d958-eb1c-4fa2-bf6b-d8f1a0471d02" to "UUID: fsc5d958-eb1c-4fa2-bf6b-d8f1a0471d02"
and then do a restore would it cure the duplicate UUID and LABEL problem?

I'll have a go later and let you know how I got on.

Would it be of any use to you if next time I use fsarchiver I take a snapshot of the different screens that come up with suggested text changes(rewording)?
They also might be handy for your tutorial, a step by step guide
ukbrian
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