Re: backing up a drive
On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 07:40 -0500, John Fleming wrote:
> >> > A pointer: take a dump of the entire drive (dd if=/dev/hda) and not
> >> > just
> >> > partition.
>
> Please tell this newbie additional info that's probably obvious to everyone
> else - What all should be stopped while dd is doing it's thing, IOW stop
> mail server and anything else that might be actively trying to change files
> during the dd? What all comes to mind - mail, cron, Apache...others??
>
> What's the worst thing that might happen if active services are NOT
> stopped - a jumbled mail message or could the whole filesystem end up
> unusable in this case??
>
> Thanks - John
>
Well, according to me a dd of a live system is a really bad idea. The
safest way is just boot with a live linux CD (knoppix for instance) and
dump the partitions from the HDD. Do NOT dump a mounted partition.
Access the partition directly using the device (/dev/hda1 for instance).
This way you'll have a consistent dump of your partition.
I do not know what would happen if you dump a live system, but I don't
think much good can come from it.
Philippe De Ryck
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