Ubuntu How To's --- HOW TO backup and restore your system partition using partimage

HOW TO backup and restore your system partition using partimage

If you have multiple computers with the same hardware that you want to install Ubuntu at, or just want to backup your system the simplest way to go is partimage. With this application you can create a backup of entire partition that you can later copy to the new computer with the same hardware or restore your system partition if you have messed up something.
To backup your system partition it needs to be unmounted. In other words you will need to boot from Ubuntu Live CD and then use this tutorial. If your system partition gets mounted automaticly you'll be able to see it on your desktop. Double click on it and take a look to what folder is mounted to. It will be something like '/media/system'. To unmount it open terminal and type:

sudo umount /media/system

The actuall command will vary depending to what folder was your system partition mounted. Next, you will need to download partimage, you can do this by typing following in terminal:

sudo apt-get install partimage

Next thing is to find out what is the system partition you want to backup, type:

sudo fdisk -l

This will list all the disks on your computer and all partitions on them. It will look something like this:

On picture above we can see three disks (/dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd) with three partitions on /dev/sdb (/dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb3, /dev/sdb4), one partition on disk /dev/sdc (/dev/sdc1) and one partition on /dev/sdd (/dev/sdd1). I hope this is enough to find out what partition you want to backup. If not, try mounting the partitions to find the desired one. You can mount them like this, type:

sudo mkdir /media/disk
mount /dev/sdXY /media/disk

Where sdXY will depend on partion you want to mount. Dont forget to unmount the partition after mounting.

When you have succesfully indentified partition to backup, you need to know exact location to where you are going to back it up. It will probably be some external disk or some other partition that will be automounted and with link on your desktop. Double click on the link and remember complete location of the folder where you want to backup your system partition (for example something like /media/disk/systembackup , it must begin with /). Now you can proceed using partimage. Type

sudo partimage

to start the application.
I want to backup my system partition, it is the /dev/sdb1 partition, and I will back it up to file /media/disk/systembackup/UbuntuBak. So the next screen should look something like this

When you're done press F5. On next screen you can select compression level. I set this at None but you can set it as you wish, depending on available space. Rest of the options should be left at default.

Again press F5. On next screen select the description of the image, for example 'My Ubuntu System Backup'

Press OK on all of the following screens and let the process finish.

To restore partition after something went wrong simply check Restore partition from an image file. It should look something like this (don't forget to type the location to your image file)

You can leave a comment at the homepage.

HOW TO backup and restore your system partition using partimage

SEARCH