Backups

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piroska

Backups

Post by piroska »

OK, I have Timeshift and Systemback.

Run Timeshift, not the other yet.

My boot is on sda1, and /home is sda2.
I hate that.

Can I wipe it out, reinstall back onto sda1 totally, ignoring sda2, then restore everything with Timeshift (or the other)? Will it do that?

I really don't want to have to fiddle around installing all my bits again and configuring everything and all that.

Being new, it took ages in the first place and even remembering all I did would be a pita.

But I am not sure if these programs would actually do that?
Obviously I have the Timeshift data on another separate drive, mounted for safety as well.
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Moem
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Re: Backups

Post by Moem »

piroska wrote:My boot is on sda1, and /home is sda2.
I hate that.
Why? How does it make a difference?
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all41
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Re: Backups

Post by all41 »

My boot is on sda1, and /home is sda2.
I hate that.
This is a good arrangement. If you need to reinstall your os you will not jeopardize your personal files.
Everything in life was difficult before it became easy.
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Re: Backups

Post by greerd »

If by 'boot' you mean your slash '/' (system) directory then I would say you have things set up perfectly. (depending on your partition size)

The advantage of this is that you can do a fresh install and keep your /home untouched, making setup a breeze. Also, if you use the recommended (default, I think) settings in timeshift to only backup your system files and not your /home stuff, you can use your /home for the timshift backups so they won't get 'timeshifted' during a recovery.

Using a separate backup strategy for your /home and store it on an external drive also makes sense. I use LuckyBackup for that but there are more and perhaps better options for this since LuckyBackup is no longer supported.

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Re: Backups

Post by Cosmo. »

What about the problem with your partition table? If this is not solved, the question if home on sda2 or not is a secondary one.
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Re: Backups

Post by Spearmint2 »

What you should do then;

Leave /home where it is on sda2.

Open GParted and remove sda1

Create a new partition that has a 1MB set off.

Boot to Installation DVD or USB.

When it asks for bootloader location, point it to the /dev/sda drive

When it asks which partition to install to, point to sda1.

It will pickup the /home folder.

Just in case, assign the same username and password.

If it won't allow that user to open /home, then come back for more instructions.
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Re: Backups

Post by lonestar144 »

It is actually good that root/boot is on a separate drive, makes things easier to work with if things go south.

I have three hdd's:
sda1- 160 GB for system/boot
sdb1 - !TB for home
sdc1 - 1TB for backups and swap

If anything happens to my boot/root drive, just replace and/or reinstall os without affecting my home files. I don't run any special backup software, I just use rsync to copy /home to my backup drive. If /home drive gets jacked, just edit fstab to point to backup drive for /home, replace hdd and rsync. In worst case scenario, would take 30 min to reinstall mint and be up running again.
piroska

Re: Backups

Post by piroska »

Spearmint2, that sounded good, although I don't understand that 1mb business.

Lonestar144, now that sounds better and seems to eliminate the need for any programs to image or whatever.

The thing is, you said boot and system is on sda1. I don't think anything is on my sda1, except it says this is the boot.

It sure isn't really in use.....99.9% empty.

/home is on sda2. I am currently copying /home in it';s entirety over to sdb1. Nothing else seems to work or be what I want....a way to restore my o/s, personalised with all my programs, configured with my wallpaper, Tbird and Mozilla settings etc etc , whatever other tweaks I have done, as is, without having to do it all again.

sda is 1TB in total.
sdb is 320gb. It's ok as a backup drive but too old to use permanently forever.

I have a 320GB external too. But that has a lot of stuff on it I want to keep (not for Linux) so has a lot less free space.
piroska

Re: Backups

Post by piroska »

So have copied /home over.
Now what do I do?

I would use gparted utility, not terminal.
I would use my original boot disk, obviously I know I'd have to do that....

Can you explain the steps according to Lonestars144 idea. I would like to change the partitions though, currently sda1 is 157Gb and sda2 is the rest.
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Re: Backups

Post by Moem »

piroska wrote: now that sounds better and seems to eliminate the need for any programs to image or whatever.
A separate /home partition can be useful for sure, but it does not replace a backup. If the drive dies, it dies and if everything is on that same drive, it's gone just the same.
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piroska

Re: Backups

Post by piroska »

I understand that.
I've read so many threads all over about backups.


The main thing I wanted was a method of what I used to do with Windows.
Image my customised install, with all intact, mail profile, Firefox profile, my files and folders, my wallpaper selection, all the bits you spend ages doing.

Now it seems not quite the same and various things I tried didn't work the same, partly the way I have this set up now.

All I want to know is how to redo the drive, and get my customized bit back.
Someones said I should just reformat and start over with a fresh install then just copy my /home back over from off the other drive.
Weill that work? If not, what, exactly, should I do?

With system on sda1, home on sda2, I can still run Timeshift or something to have backups of the system. I can also, still copy these over to my sdb1 drive for safe keeping, and probably, as well, copy to an external also.
Thus having it on 2 other drives.

But the main thing is, avoiding losing my setup. It's bad enough in windows redoing this sort of thing, Linux seems easier actually, but being new, I don't even remember all what I did do, so I'd rather not have to start over from scratch.
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Re: Backups

Post by Moem »

piroska wrote:Someones said I should just reformat and start over with a fresh install then just copy my /home back over from off the other drive.
Weill that work?
That might have been me. Because I have had success with that method.

The nice thing is: if your home is a separate partition, you can reinstall the system, and reuse /home by setting the mount point for that partition to /home, and NOT ticking the box to format it. That should leave it in place. Of course, it's smart to have a backup in case this goes wrong.

It's a pretty neat trick... like swapping out the tablecloth, while not moving any of the tableware that's on the table. :)
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piroska

Re: Backups

Post by piroska »

It did not work.
I copied it back after doing a reinstall.

Permissions were root, fixed that, had a friend check , all ownership and permissions are now as they should be.
Just nothing loads. Nothing at all.

He got me to create a new user. t's got me here, but there's something bizarre, some thigs work, like Firefox, this is under the new user. But some don't, like the software manager.
Nothing happens, it does the little circle like I'm loading then nothing.
Cannot uninstall anything from the menu.

Friend had to go..he thinks the first user folder is dodgy, no the whole thing is, by the look of it.

So confused??!!
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Re: Backups

Post by Moem »

That's not good. Then I would do a clean reinstall and restore my settings manually. It's not much fun but it's a much more certain way to get things working right again. Sorry to hear it did not work out.
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piroska

Re: Backups

Post by piroska »

Yeah, despite me asking heaps of times, I didn't get a definite answer. SO now I know, the hard way, you can't file copy your stuff over.

Thanks to a guru friend I have (and some random experimentation on my part, it's fixed.
Willster

Re: Backups: how do I change permissions from 'root'...trying to backup one hard drive to a usb mass storage drive?

Post by Willster »

piroska wrote:It did not work.
I copied it back after doing a reinstall.

Permissions were root, fixed that, had a friend check , all ownership and permissions are now as they should be.
Just nothing loads. Nothing at all.

He got me to create a new user. t's got me here, but there's something bizarre, some thigs work, like Firefox, this is under the new user. But some don't, like the software manager.
Nothing happens, it does the little circle like I'm loading then nothing.
Cannot uninstall anything from the menu.

Friend had to go..he thinks the first user folder is dodgy, no the whole thing is, by the look of it.

So confused??!!
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Re: Backups: how do I change permissions from 'root'...trying to backup one hard drive to a usb mass storage drive?

Post by Moem »

Willster, it seems you're trying to ask a question of your own in someone elses topic, and asking it in the subject not the body of the message. Both of these are not the best ideas. Please start a new topic for your question.
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piroska

Re: Backups

Post by piroska »

Is the USB drive Linux (ext3 or ext 4 or such?) or is it in Fat or ntfs?

https://superuser.com/questions/752380/ ... -hard-disk

https://askubuntu.com/questions/251206/ ... cific-user

A couple of threads on it.

I am just doing this now:

tar cvf /mnt/mdir.tgz . (creates tar of /home/user)

tar xvf /mnt/mydir.tgz . (restores it)

And I use Timeshift for system snapshots.
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