[expert] Complete system backup

[Adrian Golumbovici]

Sorry if this might come up twice in the list, but for some strange reason I sent the message yesterday and it didn't appear yet in the list. On the other hand the message I sent today appeared in a few mins, so I will suppose the message got lost somehow on the way and post it again. Sorry in advance for any inconvenience if it appears as a double, but I really wish for an answer on this issue.   Best regards, Adrian ----- Original Message ----- From: Adrian Golumbovici To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 7:34 PM Subject: Complete system backup Hi all,   Have an embarrasing question... I never did a complete backup of my system (I know I should be ashamed:) ) and most times I just restored it by hand step by step in case something foul happened. Unfortunatelly now my System has been running stable since last year and I changed/customized/installed so many things on my server/firewall that I am starting to shiver at the idea to redo everything from scratch if it would somehow fail... On the other hand, partial backup on such a customized installation would also be a pain as I would have to think of what things I changed and what should I backup and though I have a good memory, it would be almost futile to think of all the possible files I might want to backup. Also a partial backup might conflict if I would reinstall the entire OS and load the backup if the backup files do not fit the packages versions. So I was kinda wondering if there is such thing as a backup where to restore the whole system (including OS itself) you'd put the backup CD in and let it restore "installer like". So without having to install linux first. This might also prove usefull later when I want to change the hdd of my server with a faster one. For now I have 3 older/slower hdds and because of that I am kind of limited with the partitions options. It would also be cool if I could specify by backup to ignore the current partitions/hdds, so I could restore all later on a single bigger hdd. So... Is there a way to make such a backup or am I running after windmills? :)   Best regards and thanks in advance for your help guys, Adrian