[ale] Backup Nirvana - bootable backup

Adrin adrin at bellsouth.net
Mon Jan 17 08:07:33 EST 2011


I have used Lone Star backup professionally for YEARS.  It is not a free
product. But in my book the crash recovery for Linux and SCO can't be
beat.  Or I should say I have not seen anything better.  Ihave replaced
a clients crashing HDD, while they were having lunch.  Mind you the
system was only a 40GB Drive at most. 

Sad thing is that for the same price you can't get a good windows crash
recovery. 

I will check out the UBCD again.  I have used Acronis a lot to copy
drives. 

On Sun, 2011-01-16 at 23:26 -0500, Ron Frazier wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
> I wanted to pass along a preliminary report on an amazing backup
> experience I had today.  I've been using PC's pretty much ever since
> they were invented for consumer use, and backing them up most of that
> time.  It's always a pain, and doing a restore is a royal pain even with
> a backup.
> 
> My backup strategy has 2 parts:
> 
> 1) Never need one.
> 
> and, because "stuff" happens
> 
> 2) If you ever have to use one, have one and make sure the restore works
> as easily and quickly as possible.
> 
> I do not subscribe to the back up the data and rebuild the system
> theory.  There are literally hundreds of settings that I configure or
> tweak during a computer install.  They relate to power, security,
> wireless, applications, add-on's, preferences, etc.  The configuration
> screens for Firefox alone have about 30 settings.  It may take me a
> couple of days to set up a new system.  That's time I only want to spend
> the first time, never again.
> 
> I want a backup that gets the system totally back to the way it was on
> the day of the backup, including all settings, applications, and
> operating systems.
> 
> For years, I've been using Acronis TrueImage to make images of my
> Windows systems.  I have, on a few bad days, had to use them to restore
> the systems, and it works, but it's still a pain.  The main disadvantage
> of that is that you have to dig up the restoration software disc and
> wait hours while the image is restored.
> 
> Last week, I ran the SMART long diagnostic on my HDD in my laptop and
> found a couple of bad sectors.  I decided to go ahead and replace the
> drive.  I bought a new same size one from Frys then RMA'd the old one.
> (This is a 7200 RPM 2.5", and has hybrid platter and flash, which is
> cool.)  I cloned the old data on the laptop to the new drive I bought,
> then installed the drive.  In that case I connected both the new and old
> drives directly to available SATA interfaces in my desktop machine.  I
> used a program on the free CD from http://ultimatebootcd.com/ called
> CopyWipe to make an exact clone of the drive.  When I installed the new
> drive, it worked perfectly, both on the Windows and the Ubuntu side of
> the dual boot fence (hence avoiding the need to use my old backup).  I
> then used CopyWipe  to wipe the old drive before returning it to
> Seagate.
> 
> I decided to use the replacement drive that Seagate sent me as a
> bootable backup, which I'd never done before.  To prepare it, I put it
> in a USB SATA enclosure.  This is the way I'd generally do a backup,
> rather than removing the drives and installing them in the desktop
> machine.  I booted an Acronis TrueImage CD at bedtime, attached the
> spare drive to the USB port, and selected the clone option to clone the
> laptop's drive over to the spare, then went to bed.
> 
> In the morning, the cloning operation was done.  I decided to simulate a
> "recovery" and pretend that the laptop drive was dead.  I shut down the
> machine, removed two screws from the HDD, and removed it.  I then slid
> the spare drive that I'd cloned into the same slot, since it's an
> identical size SATA drive.  I turned the machine back on and booted from
> the spare drive.  Very shortly, I had my Windows running on the backup
> drive as if nothing had happened.  (I know it's a Linux group.  Keep
> reading.)
> 
> This was GREAT!  I had recovered my system using the BACKUP in 2
> MINUTES!  Now, I still have to clone it once a week (or two or four),
> but I think I can do that.  I don't like to leave the backup drive
> attached lest a malfunction or virus in the target machine also trashes
> the backup drive.
> 
> OK, now it gets interesting.  I decided to boot into Ubuntu.  Now, I
> have the Windows boot loader as my primary boot screen, and that's set
> to chain to Grub using a setup provided by using the EasyBCD program
> http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 .  So, the Windows boot screen appears,
> then I select Ubuntu, then Grub should appear.  It didn't appear.  It
> locked up on something that said BootSector, I think.
> 
> Now, here's what's interesting.  Remember that I said I got a new hard
> drive and cloned the original laptop drive on my desktop machine with
> CopyWipe.  The drives were directly installed on SATA ports.  That drive
> worked flawlessly when installed, including both the Windows and the
> Ubuntu side of the fence.
> 
> However, the drive I cloned with Acronis TrueImage via the USB port
> worked with Windows but not Ubuntu.  I have no idea why.  I have not
> tried CopyWipe via USB yet.
> 
> In any case, I booted back into Windows, ran the EasyBCD program to
> rebuild the link to Grub and set up the Windows boot screen, then booted
> again.  I selected Ubuntu, then Grub appeared as it should, then I
> selected the latest version, and TA-DA, Ubuntu is booted.
> 
> So, now I'm back in business on the SPARE drive.  Worst case scenario, I
> can be back up and running after a drive failure, including Windows and
> Linux, even having to tinker with the boot sequence, within 20 minutes.
> And, I have EVERYTHING that I had configured before in the system as of
> the date of the clone.  This is by far the best backup strategy I've
> found.  I still have JungleDisk backing up the data online every 6 hours
> in case there is a fire, flood, or theft, which kills my local backups.
> Also, I would still have to restore the data created or altered since
> the backup.
> 
> The main disadvantage, other than actually having to do the backups, is
> that this takes one spare hard drive and enclosure for every clone you
> want to make, for every computer.  However, I have enough hard drives
> and enclosures on hand to clone 4 computers once.  Later, I hope to add
> a 2nd clone of each.
> 
> If anyone else has had experience with bootable backup systems, please
> post it.  If I get a chance to do further experiments, I'll post the
> results.
> 
> By the way, the Jan 2011 issue of Linux Journal has a neat article about
> CloneZilla.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ron
> 




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