Mark Phillips wrote:
> 1. /dev/hda1=hard drive to copy, /dev/sda1=external firewire hard drive; 
> destination for partimage (automatically recognized by Knoppix!)
> 2. I ran fdisk on each disk (/dev/hda1 and /dev/sda1) and they came back as 
> fat32
> 3. I mounted /dev/sda1 as rw (default for both drives was ro)
> 4. I ran partimage -z1 save /dev/hda1 /mnt/sda1/Images/win2k.partimage.gz - 
> copied about 700MB

Sounds good.

> 1. According to the man page for partimage, the MBR is automatically copied 
> with the partition image. However, I got an error message saying the using 
> the default compression (bzip2) the MBR could not be restored, so I went 
> with the -z1 option and gzip. When I did an imginfo the message indicated 
> that the MBR was copied. However, in one of your emails you recommended 
> making a separate step and copy the MBR manually using
> 
> dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/sda1/Images/had-img.mbr bsQ2 count=1
> 
> Is this necessary, or were you helping me out with the bzip2 limitation in 
> partimage?

The version of partimage I used didn't actually copy the MBR.  It sounds 
like you are not using the curses GUI interface.  I didn't actually try 
saving the MBR in partimage.  Actually it was only after the fact on a 
few of my machines that I realized that I needed the MBR (and that 
procedure was what I used).  Actually, it can't hurt to have a MBR 
laying around ... its tiny.  But I bet partimage took care of it.

(Oh, BTW ... your dd command above has bsQ2 in it ... that should be 
bs=512 )

> 2. If I mess up my hda1 later, all I need to do is run
> 
> partimage restore /dev/hda1 /mnt/sda1/Images/win2k.partimage.gz
> 
> and it will write over the MBR and all other files to restore the system to 
> today's configuration. For example, I have OfficeXP currently on the hda1 
> partition, so it will be restored to its current state. All other files 
> will be lost on the disk. Or, do I have to fdisk the hda1 first and then 
> run partimage?

I like to fdisk things first just to know I am working with a clean 
partition.  But, I may be misguided.  Actually this is from the 
partimage docs:

"Restoring data will copy the data which were saved into an image file, 
into a partition. Data already on the partition you are restoring to 
will be lost! The partition to restore data to must already exist before 
you proceed. If it doesn't exist, you must create it before with a tool, 
such as fdisk, GNU parted, or other tools. You won't be able to restore 
information if it won't fit in the new partition, so make sure you 
create one with enough space.

Restoring an image into a partition is an easy operation. You must 
specify the image file to use (it will only be read), and the partition 
to restore (it will be overwritten). The only extra option you can 
choose is Erase free blocks with zero values. If this option is enabled, 
all blocks which are not used are erased with zero bytes. This may be 
useful if you want to be sure that the data which were on the partition 
before this operation are fully erased. If this option is disabled, old 
data which was on currently unused blocks can be accessed (with some 
difficulty), because nothing is written on these blocks. These old data 
can be read with tools such as dd (GNU convert and copy). "

> 3. When I restore, do I have to restore to the same size hard drive? If I 
> repartition hda1 to have 2 partitions - one for win2k and one for Linux. 
> Can I restore the Win2K partition from my firewire drive to the now smaller 
> partition on hda1? If yes, does it have to be the same drive, or can I now 
> take the saved win2k partition to another computer and different size drive 
> and install it and boot up Win2k?

Hard drive size just needs to be bigger than the partition.  I think the 
partition you put it on needs to be as big as the partition you pulled 
it from.  You can move to a different drive, but Win2k might get cranky 
if you switch motherboards (IDE chipsets must be similar or identical or 
something, I don't quite know, there may be ways around it, I just 
avoind the problem).

> 4. Now that I have saved this partition, should I use PartionMagic (Windows 
> program) to cut the current partition in half to install Linux, or depend 
> on the Linux distro's install program to repartition the drive? Which 
> distro would you recommend Mandrake or Redhat?

Most linux distros don't include a partition resizer (I think the new 
mandrake might).  But you should use PartitionMagic or gnu parted to 
resize the partition (having FAT32 simplifies use of parted or makes it 
possible, I know I have resized NTFS but forget which tool.)

Distro is a religious thing.  I think I am slowly migrating to debian 
for philisophical reasons (and packaging reasons, but the packaging 
problems are somewhat alleviated by apt for RPM and I don't mind 
compiling an occasional tarball).  But I still use RedHat often.  But as 
they get bigger I worry about their reliability and they may start doing 
garbage (like big companies are likely to do).  RedHat makes a nice 
desktop, quick install.  No BS so far ... except their up2date requires 
registration.


Good luck

Austin