Questions regarding Knoppix
Mark Phillips
plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Sat, 1 Mar 2003 16:18:05 -0700
Austin,
Thanks!
BTW, I know my eyes are starting to show their age, but I can't see what you mean:
"(Oh, BTW ... your dd command above has bsQ2 in it ... that should be bsQ2 )"
It seems to me that bsQ2 is the same as bs2Q???
Thanks again for all your help!!
Mark Phillips
Phillips Marketing, Inc.
mark@phillipsmarketing.biz
480 945-0798
480 945-9197 fax
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-----Original Message-----
From: Austin Godber [SMTP:godber@uberhip.com]
Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2003 3:17 PM
To: plug-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
Subject: Re: Questions regarding Knoppix
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
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