OT: Hard drive backup plan
My /dev/hda hard drive is on the way out, and I just wanted to run my
backup plan past you all, to minimise any pain if/when it's replaced...
My setup is as follows:
Running Debian woody with a few backported newer packages.
40G /dev/hda split between an ext3 root partition (about 20Gb), a swap partition, and a Windows 2000 partition (about 20Gb)
40G /dev/hdb, the whole of which is dedicated to an LVM volume group.
The only stuff on there I really want to keep is the approx 6Gb of
digital photos I've amassed.
So, my plan is to:
1. Copy the entire contents of the ext3 root partition minus /proc to an
LVM logical volume on /dev/hdb (using cp -a or tar)
2. Copy any windows documents to CD-R and/or /dev/hdb (don't really have
the spare space or inclination to do a complete Windows backup).
3. Swap the hard drives
4. Partition the new hard drive with a similar layout to before, and
reinstall Windows 2000 (since it affects the MBR).
5. Use Knoppix/LNX-BBC/Eduard Bloch's boot disk to copy the files from
the LVM logical volume to the ext3 partition on /dev/hda(got all three,
not sure if Knoppix supports LVM though)
6. Use the Debian rescue disk with rescue root =/dev/hda? and then run
lilo to write the MBR.
Does this sound feasible? I've never tried boot disks with LVM support,
so the only tweak I could see is to backup the photos somewhere else,
and backup everything to a big ext3 partition on /dev/hdb. Only trouble
is I don't really want to have critical stuff only on /dev/hda, and
backing up to 10+ CD-Rs would be a bit time consuming.
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