On Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:57:31 -0700
Word Wizard <[email protected]> dijo:

> Maybe some gurus here can help me. 
> 
> I backup the entire system (as root , PWD= /) with the command: 
> 
> tar cvpjf /home/myname/Archives/total_backup.tar.bz2 /
> 
> When I extract-reinstall the file system I get an ERROR 15 message which
> means it cannot find the /boot/grub/* files. Why is this?  
> 
> Solutions on line include:
> 
> 1) Using grub to define the boot/grub/ location. Problem?  You must use
> the (hd1,0) notation but the menu.lst file uses UUID notation for Ubuntu
> (but still uses hd0,0 notation for the Windows drive- go figure that
> one!) How do I translate between UUID --> (hd,0) --> dev/sd* notation?

Grub will happily use regular device notation instead of UUID. However,
when I say "regular" I mean /dev/hda1, not hd0,0. Strange, that.

You can also find the UUID with "sudo tune2fs -l /dev/hda1," changing
"hda1" to whatever partition you want the UUID for.

I have been told that the UUID is better because it points at a
specific place on the platter, where /dev/hda1 may move around
depending on what the user does. Fine. And how often have I moved
partitions around and messed up my booting because of it? Never. I
haven't even heard of anyone who has ever done so. I wish they'd just
dump the UUIDs for Grub.*

*I did end up with a messed up pointer in menu.lst, but not because of
anything I did. An update to a new kernel failed to realize that my
file system was on a software RAID, so it put the new files on one disk
only and told menu.lst to look for them on the other disk. I've done my
share of dumbass moves, but that one wasn't my doing. 
> 2) Using Intrepid Install CD to manually install new partitions then
> don't actually partition, then install grub. Problem?  How do I
> determine the right mount points and sizes for root, swap, etc. to
> accurately replicate the existing file system?  It seems to me that if
> they don't sync, I lose the whole disk. 

If I haven't already answered this, then this question is above my job
level.

> One problem (among many) I had with Windows is that it was incredibly
> difficult to back up and restore the entire system (without extra
> software like ghost). I had hoped Linux was better. I still believe it
> can be and it is my lack of Linux knowledge that is at fault. Any help
> would be appreciated. Otherwise I may need to go to the FreeGeek Linux
> clinic and bother them with this boring newbie question.

That's what the Clinic is for! Besides, some of us have only enough
knowledge to answer the boring newbie questions. If there were no
boring newbie questions we'd have nothing to do. Or we'd try to help
someone with serious problems and end up seriously messing things up. 
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