it works!! please help me before I fsck it up!!!

[cotfessi]

With the help of these forums, NHFs and some good old fashioned trial and error, I've finally got my debian box working!! I have a very barebones installation right now, but all of the important packages are there and the important /etc/* files have been edited.

I'm now looking to create some sort of image of my partitions on CDs so that if something happens I can restore them to their original state. I understand that I could backup a few directories and reinstall linux and then just restore these directories, it's just that in my case I had a difficult time getting all of my hardware working correctly and I'd rather avoid the reinstall process if I could.

I searched through the forums and this was the only thread that held any promise, but it's from back in august and there isn't really a definite answer given:

http://www.linuxnewbie.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=008525

Anyone have any thoughts on how I could accomplish this or know of any new programs that may have popped up since august?


Please keep in mind that I'm still a newbie, although I'd like to document the process when I master it and perhaps propose/create a NHF on the topic if it would help others.

Thanks for the help

-cotfessi

[ColdPack]

Take a look at dd.
So...

man dd.

It's disk duplicator. It saved my butt a while back. For some reason, I knew I was going to fsck up my wife's windows partition so I simply used dd to make a bit by bit copy of it on another hard drive I have but never use (small but big enough to use in emergencies).
This is what you want, I'm sure of it.

[Strike]

look around for info on mkisofs - this will create ISO images for you that you can burn onto CDs. dd will work, but I don't think it's as easy (user-friendly)

[ColdPack]

Hmm...
I found it pretty easy, at least from one hard drive to the other.


dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdb1