Fastest way to backup/recover

[rmcellig]

What is the fastest and easiest way to backup/restore my computer? I heard that if you backed up some of the key folders in your root directory, then you could reformat your drive, install as new distro and then just copy those key folders back. What are those key folders, and is this the best and quickest way to do a backup/restore?

[billhedrick]

what you need is the home folder. I have multiple HD's so I simply copy it to my backup drive. Your individual settings are in that folder. There may be some conflicts with newer versions of software, but I haven't run into any.

[rmcellig]

Does a straight backup copy everything including all the invisible files?

[rmcellig]

When I copy my Home folder from an external drive back to my newly installed Linus distro, is it best to do this while booted from a Live CD?

[Admin-Amir]

Hello ppl.

My Best way for you will be to use Back in Time.
It will take snapshot from your System / From the place you want to save.
Like your Home/The System.....
Then you can call the image back and there you have it all in no time.

[rmcellig]

I thought about back in Time as an option but I wasn't quite sure how to recover. After say I install a new distro, all I have to do is install Back In Time and recover back to the new distro? Or should this be done from a Live CD?

[Admin-Amir]

rmcellig.

Here is how it works.
you can use the software to snap shot your home let's say right.
Now - you can format the system - then install the system (Freash install).
And you have made one snap shot that you call - xxxx.
then After you made the snap shot and you have copy the snap shot from the place tha you sent it to
To Flash Drive or what ever out of your machine.

So the just copy and past the snap shot and call the snap shot to Recover your Home.
Then you will get what ever was on at the time you made the snap shot / day / time / min...

[rcarlisle]

For those that like to have a fully bootable fallback position (and you have the hardware resources along with some time), you can also use a utility like dd_rescue to block-copy your current drive to a second drive. I always test the duplicate by booting from it (I figure if it boots up and behaves like my original, it is likely a good clone).
Be careful with dd_rescue, because if you copy the wrong direction, you can blow away your original source and loose everything (you have been warned). See the dd_rescue man pages before trying this.
Then I perform a fresh installation of the new version (I keep /home on a separate partition on the main boot drive and carefully instruct the installer to leave /home untouched). This gives me the new install with /home as was previously (no need to copy the home folder back to the new installation). If something goes wrong (haven't had any trouble so far), I can try again because I have a duplicate of the older system to work from.

[LinuxPusher]

Edit keyword: Standalone

[rmcellig]

Be careful with dd_rescue, because if you copy the wrong direction, you can blow away your original source and loose everything (you have been warned). See the dd_rescue man pages before trying this.

Thanks for the warning but I don't really care because I have three computers that were given to me that I use to learn Linux so if I trash an OS or something along those lines, I just reinstall and continue... I'm having a lot of fun learning the ins/outs of Linux and various distros. I only use my iMac about 10% of the time now.

I wish there was a way to install Linux on my iMac as my main OS with the camera and recording from Line In working properly. If those two things worked, I would switch over right away!