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On 28 Mar 2008, at 19:13, Francesco Talamona wrote: |
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|
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> On Friday 28 March 2008, Stroller wrote: |
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>> I deal with h0sed Windows installations for my customers all the |
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>> time. I regularly boot a Knoppix CD and copy the whole C: drive to a |
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>> portable disk so that I have a complete backup. I find it |
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>> reassuring to use Linux for this purpose because I feel confident |
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>> that cp or rsync will copy _every file on the drive_ without just |
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>> silently ignoring those marked with the hidden flag, or bitching |
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>> about permissions. |
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> |
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> I prefer to save the entire partition with PING (Partimage Is Not |
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> Ghost) |
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> or equivalent tools to avoid gotchas with charsets. |
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> rsync and cp are excellent, but you have to mount the partition |
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> with the |
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> right options not to loose coherence in file naming. |
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|
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Thanks! I'll look into PING. The documentation on PING's homepage |
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seems a little scanty, but I'm sure a Google will be a bit more |
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forthcoming. |
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|
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There are a couple of reasons I appreciate copying on a file-by-file |
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basis - I don't know if PING would allow me the same flexibility. |
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|
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Firstly, if I undertake a full format-and-install of XP, I like to |
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copy back _every file_ from the old system back into a folder called |
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"C:\Old Stuff" (and place a shortcut to this on the user's desktop). |
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I find this more reassuring than, say, copying just "My Documents" |
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because occasionally programs save their data somewhere stupid. For |
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instance, I recently discovered that the software for a Canon camera |
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- which offers to automagically import one's photos when the camera |
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is plugged in - stores the pictures in "Program Files/Canon/PhotoEx/ |
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Library". |
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|
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When I return the PC to the customer I open "Old Stuff", find the old |
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"My Documents" and copy the contents into their new "My Documents". I |
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then right-click on the "Old Stuff" desktop shortcut and choose |
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"search" - I find their internet Favourites folder, and show them how |
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one would find (for example) a file called "letter", so that anything |
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I've missed they can (hopefully) find for themselves. |
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|
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In the case of the family photos in the Canon folder, I was very glad |
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to have the whole original contents of the drive available!! I was |
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able to subsequently copy them to My Photos and tell the software to |
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use this as its "library", but it might have been inconvenient had I |
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used a tool that backed up the partition as a single image - I don't |
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think I'd have been able to recover single files from that once back |
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onsite at the customer's house and booted into XP? |
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|
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I tend to take this copy-every-file-on-the-system approach so that if |
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ever there is a problem with a file missing from backup I can put my |
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hand on my heart and say, "if it was on your PC before, then you |
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still have a copy of it". I tend to delete only "temp", "temporary |
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internet files", "recycled", "recycler" and "system volume |
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information" directories, plus the old hiberfile (spelling?) & |
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pagefile. Ideally, when a Windows reinstall is required, I suppose I |
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would prefer to preserve completely the original hard-drive, and to |
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do the new reinstall on a brand new hard-disk. However disks are not |
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yet quite cheap enough that one could normally justify the additional |
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expense to a domestic customer, and besides, it would rather seem |
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like a waste to consume a perfectly good hard-drive as a backup that |
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is unlikely ever to be referenced. |
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|
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I also find discrete-file copying useful when a computer needs a |
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repair-install of XP, but the PC OEM has configured it with some |
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stupid partitioning scheme (probably packaged with a "System Restore" |
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partition) that is unrecognised by a Microsoft installation CD. In |
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this case one may be able to back up all the files on the disk, |
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delete the partition table, create a new single primary NTFS |
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partition, copy the files back, (edit the boot.ini, if necessary) and |
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then repair install over the top (which also creates the master boot |
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record). There are times when an unbootable system may be recovered |
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to a perfectly usable state, complete with all the users' files & |
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settings intact (and consequently, with little disruption for the |
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user). `ntfsclone` might well allow me to do this same thing - as |
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might PING? - however I haven't yet explored its possibilities - I |
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wonder about how (well) an ntfscloned secondary-partition might be |
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restored as a primary, for example. |
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|
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I have experienced file-copy failures using `rsync` and `cp`, and |
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this was quite disconcerting until I discovered the cause likely to |
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be the charset-related problem you mention. I now redirect stderr to |
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a file when copying & review this afterwards - I don't know whether |
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I'm fortunate with the charset used in the UK, but so far I might |
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typically find that only 1 or 3 files from "Temporary Internet Files" |
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fail (amongst the thousands on a Windows hard-drive), so it has not |
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(yet) been a problem here. |
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|
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Stroller. |
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-- |
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