Backup tool required

[deepakdeshp]

Hello,
I want to backup my friends Windows machine.
It's a one time activity.
The data is around 800 gb in 3 partitions. There are 10s of thousands of files.
I plan to boot from Mint 18.2 Cinnamon USB and backup to an external USB 2TB drive.
I feel that copy paste will copy the data block by block.tar has block size flag and do has dd. But dd will copy the whole partition and not only the data blocks.
Is there any command or script that can let me use the block size, will copy the disk blocks?
If piped to gzip will it do a dry run and tell me the number of blocks that would be used by the script. So that I can estimate the gzip size on Windows partition, if it fits will have the backup file on the same partition, while excluding the backup file from the backup.The zipped file can be copied to the external drive.

Many thanks for any suggestions

[trytip]

nah man, don't compress anything or look for backup tool to copy files. if you're not wanting to backup a whole entire system's OS with boot loader then your best option is to copy the folders you want in WINDOWS not in LINUX. copying in linux will have cache limitations on speed with ntfs anyway so use your windows to copy the files and try not to make a simple task so complicated.

when i got a new drive and wanted all my 1GB+ files copied (let's face it you're not backing them up you're copying them no matter what you use) windows gave me transfer of 80-100mbps while linux only gave me 24mpbs so windows is much faster in copying

so the question should be are you copying documents,videos,music or system files from root

[deepakdeshp]

nah man, don't compress anything or look for backup tool to copy files. if you're not wanting to backup a whole entire system's OS with boot loader then your best option is to copy the folders you want in WINDOWS not in LINUX. copying in linux will have cache limitations on speed with ntfs anyway so use your windows to copy the files and try not to make a simple task so complicated.

when i got a new drive and wanted all my 1GB+ files copied (let's face it you're not backing them up you're copying them no matter what you use) windows gave me transfer of 80-100mbps while linux only gave me 24mpbs so windows is much faster in copying

so the question should be are you copying documents,videos,music or system files from root

That's a whole new insite. His Windows 7 has crashed so I will have to find a way to boot into win7 and access c d and e drives. C d e drives do show the files when I booted from Live Mint USB. The error isn't bad blocks but something related to Windows the os.

[pbear]

What's the restore strategy? If the object is to be able to restore the partitions after repairing the OS, I'd use Clonezilla Live. If the object is to be able to copy the files into a new system, I'd want them in native format. Yeah, for 800 gig, that'll take a while.

[phd21]

Hi "deepakdeshp",

If it were me, I would boot up to a disc imaging system, like "Clonezilla Live", on a bootable CD/DVD or USB flash drive stick, and select your USB external drive as the destination. FYI: This does have compression options and it is fast.

Note: If the Windows partition is the problem, you can back that up, then re-install it or even better Linux Mint.

IMHO everyone should be backing up regularly to an exernal drive using a disc imaging software, then doing incremental frequent backups using a syncing application like "FreeFileSync", Lucky Backup, a cloud provider, etc...

FYI: If the MS Windows is corrupted or infected, then re-installing it (or Linux Mint) is the best way to go after you have saved all the user's important files off of that partition.

You have not given us the information on the partitions and their sizes, so I am assuming the other partitions have the bulk of the files and are basically data (storage) partitions? They should be alright even if you re-install MS Windows or Linux Mint to the primary bootable partition with or without backing up the other partitions.


Hope this helps ...

[JerryF]

Hello,
I want to backup my friends Windows machine.
It's a one time activity.
The data is around 800 gb in 3 partitions. There are 10s of thousands of files.
...
Many thanks for any suggestions

I'd use something like EaseUS Todo Backup. You can run the WinPE from a DVD or create a USB:

https://www.easeus.com/todo-backup-guid ... -disk.html

[deepakdeshp]

Hi "deepakdeshp",

If it were me, I would boot up to a disc imaging system, like "Clonezilla Live", on a bootable CD/DVD or USB flash drive stick, and select your USB external drive as the destination. FYI: This does have compression options and it is fast.

Note: If the Windows partition is the problem, you can back that up, then re-install it or even better Linux Mint.

IMHO everyone should be backing up regularly to an exernal drive using a disc imaging software, then doing incremental frequent backups using a syncing application like "FreeFileSync", Lucky Backup, a cloud provider, etc...

FYI: If the MS Windows is corrupted or infected, then re-installing it (or Linux Mint) is the best way to go after you have saved all the user's important files off of that partition.

You have not given us the information on the partitions and their sizes, so I am assuming the other partitions have the bulk of the files and are basically data (storage) partitions? They should be alright even if you re-install MS Windows or Linux Mint to the primary bootable partition with or without backing up the other partitions.


Hope this helps ...

Thank you so much. I do use Clonezilla often. In this case clonezilla is not working. I tried with 2 different clonezilla versions with the same result. I booted it in UEFI mode and legacy mode both on the infected machine but it won boot.what was surprising was it booted on my machine. His machine is also Intel i3 that is 64 bit.
The partition sizes are c 100 gig d 350 gig and e 350 gig.
E has a virtual machine running under VMware workstation. My understanding is the VMware machine will also run under Mint without any changes. Or won't it?C also has some user data and the os.

[catweazel]

copying in linux will have cache limitations on speed with ntfs anyway

I don't believe that to be correct. Do you have a reference?

[phd21]

Hi "deepakdeshp",

Are you trying to boot "Clonezilla Live" to a USB stick? If so, try a bootable CD/DVD or visa-versa.

VMware should run fine under Linux Mint. You would have to install it and then mount E drive's virtual machine(s).

Good Luck.

Keep us posted.

[deepakdeshp]

Of course I will tell how it goes.

[deepakdeshp]

Unable to boot successfully win7. So reinstalled win7 in c drive.Have to install drivers. Fortunately the cd is available.
Clonezilla, worked on my machine but sane USB didn't on my friends machine. Found that he has i 386 and ne AMD processor. I will see if the Intel version works on his machine.

Clonezilla another issue. I was backing up Mint partition of a 32 bit system intel using 64 bit AMD clonezilla USB.
The backup rate was initially 600 MB per second which dropped to 130 MB after 30 minutes and it kept on dropping. 26gb estimated backup time was 2 hours.
Has anybody experienced this?

[trytip]

The backup rate was initially 600 MB per second which dropped to 130 MB after 30 minutes and it kept on dropping. 26gb estimated backup time was 2 hours.
Has anybody experienced this?

yes , if you copy windows files in windows it copies at regular rate of the drive, if you copy from linux to an NTFS drive it will take longer it's normal.

[deepakdeshp]

The backup rate was initially 600 MB per second which dropped to 130 MB after 30 minutes and it kept on dropping. 26gb estimated backup time was 2 hours.
Has anybody experienced this?

yes , if you copy windows files in windows it copies at regular rate of the drive, if you copy from linux to an NTFS drive it will take longer it's normal.

It's a Linux machine I was copying with Clonezilla and not Windows.

[deepakdeshp]

Update
The Windows 7 machine isn't working ,as the machine isn't able to network. I have installed Mint and it's a dual boot now.

There was a VM running under VMware workstation 14 under Windows. The vm is RHEL server and fusion Oracle apps was installed on it.
Now I am no anle to open and run the VM under Mint even after installing VMware workstation. I do not know how to tackle this

[Artim]

My backup-and-restore application of choice is systemback. It allows me to create "restore points", bootable ISO of my current system setup including configuration files. Read about systemback here.