[linux-audio-user] Reliable archival of recordings

[Mark Constable]

On Sat, 20 Dec 2003 11:44 pm, Jack O'Quin wrote:
> Anthony DiSante <orders at nodivisions.com> writes:
> > rsync -av --delete --exclude '/mnt/backup/' / /mnt/backup/
> >
> > So /mnt/backup/ is then an exact copy of /, and the best part is, it's
> > bootable and functions just like the original drive(s) if I stick it
> > on the motherboard.  And the backup process usually takes just about a
> > half an hour, depending on how much new data I've added, of course.
>
> Are you sure it's really bootable?  Maybe you should try it.
>
> I doubt that the MBR, /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf are correct for a
> single-disk configuration.  These should be easy to fix as part of the
> recovery process, but you're going to need to boot a rescue disk first
> and reconfigure for the new hard disk.

I've always used a pair of removable caddies and have it set up
so I can reboot, put in a fresh unformatted drive, and go all the
way thru a complete partition and rsync of the main drive onto
the backup, and then reboot directly onto the backup drive...
without any intermediate reboots. Using an external firewire
drive I would imagine would also work with even less rebooting.

I put this file in /etc which gets rsync'd to the backup drive
and I use the following bash function (in .bashrc) to fire it off...

# cat /etc/lilo.hdc (which ends up in /mnt/hdc5/etc/lilo.hdc)
 boot = /dev/hdc
 disk = /dev/hdc
   bios = 0x80
 delay = 1
 install=menu
 image = /boot/vmlinuz
 root = /dev/hda5
 label = linux
 read-only

altlilo ()
{
    local BU_MNT=/mnt/hdc5
    mount --bind /dev $BU_MNT/dev  # for devfs
    mount --bind /proc $BU_MNT/proc
    chroot $BU_MNT /sbin/lilo -L -C /etc/lilo.hdc
    umount $BU_MNT/dev
    umount $BU_MNT/proc
    return 0
}

This is not exactly audio related but it has to do with using
HDDs for backing up the system as well as the data.

--markc