[OLUG] sooner or later

[lunatik at radiks.net]

Oh cool, I didn't know cat could do binary transfers. I would have done
it this way: 
dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/home/mesc/win_img

I've been meaing to do this, but I never seem to remember at the right
time. Next time I reinstall (should be coming up pretty soon,
actually... been too long :) I'll have to give this a try.

Dave Burchell wrote:
> 
> mesc says:
> 
> > I've spent a lot of time so far configuring linux the way I want it but
> > sooner or later (probably sooner)my windows will mess up and I'll have
> > to reinstall it.But since I don't see setup.exe or install.exe on my
> > windows 95 disk (i also have a windows 98 upgrade disk)I can't just
> > reinstall windows overwriting the existing files.I run cfdisk in linux
> > and delete my 2 Gig windows partition but when I try to install windows
> > it says theres not enough space on the drive for it.Which leads me to no
> > choice but to reformat my whole HD(5.5GB)Is there another way I can
> > reinstall windows w/o losing my linux?
> 
> Sure.  Take an "image" backup of your MS Windows partition.
> 
> The following may not be 100% technically accurate, but I know the list
> will correct me :-).
> 
> 1) Boot Linux.
> 
> 2) Find a spare filesystem where you can store a file the size of your
> Windows partition.
> 
> 3) Unmount the Windows/DOS partition in question with something like
> "umount /dos".
> 
> 4) Use "cat" or "dd" to copy all of the data to a file.  If "/dev/hda1" is
> your Windows/DOS partition say "cat < /dev/hda1 > /home/mesc/win_img".
> 
> 5) After quite a wait it will be done and you can remount your Windows/DOS
> partition or whatever else you want to do.
> 
> Fast forward to some point in time after MS Windows has (inevitably)
> destroyed itself.  Here's how you restore the system:
> 
> 1) Boot Linux.
> 
> 2) SALVAGE ANY DATA YOU MIGHT WANT from your Windows/DOS partition.
> 
> 3) Unmount the Windows/DOS partition
> 
> 4) Copy the image file you made before back to where it came from:
>    "cat < /home/mesc/win_img > /dev/hda1".
> 
> 5) After quite a wait it will be done and you can reboot the machine and
> choose your old, good, Windows installation at the LILO prompt.
> 
> Some variations on this theme might include compressing that image file or
> backing it up over a network to a tape or some other machine's large disk.
> 
> Another tip: if you keep all of your important data on another DOS
> partition (say, a D: drive) you won't have to work so hard to salvage data
> when you restore your old Windows partition.
> 
> --
> Dave Burchell                                          40.49'N, 96.41'W
> Free your mind and your software will follow.              402-467-1619
> http://incolor.inetnebr.com/burchell/                  burchell at acm.org
> 
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