On Thursday 30 August 2001 00:17, you wrote:
> I am looking into a _general_ solution to backing up Win systems to CDs
> from tomsrtbt. The solution discussed in list archive (tarring the vfat
> files into archive / copying directly to CD) seems not to be sufficient,
> as it may break some programs that do rely on system/hidden attributes
> (not that I can think of an example, but in theory these could exist) etc.
In my experience, this is not a problem. I use tar to copy a "standard"
windows partition onto all the other computers in a computer classroom. A
local tarfile is also used to restore the standard configuration once
students have f**ked it up.
This is how I install a standard setup on new machines, dual boot win/linux.
1) Install windows and linux on one computer, which becomes the reference.
2) Using szip, save partition information to a file, and make tarfiles of
both linux and windows partitions.
3) make a bootable CD using tomsrtbt, with sfdisk and scripts for automating
the procedure added on. I need 2 CDs to hold both linux and windows tarfiles.
4) Boot a new comuter with the CD. Repartition the disk with sfdisk, format
the partitions, untar. Run lilo.
5) Reboot with a windows boot floppy and run sys c: (not always necessary).
and voila - the job is done. Configuring 20 odd computers takes a day once
the CDs are burned.
Mail me if you want the libc5 version of sfdisk, or the scripts I use.
-philippe
