<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Preparation</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Linux Complete Backup and Recovery HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Overview" HREF="overview.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Creating the Stage 1 Back Up" HREF="creatingthestage1backup.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Linux Complete Backup and Recovery HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="overview.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="creatingthestage1backup.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="PREPARATION" ></A >3. Preparation</H1 ><DIV CLASS="NOTE" ><P ></P ><TABLE CLASS="NOTE" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="25" ALIGN="CENTER" VALIGN="TOP" ><IMG SRC="../images/note.gif" HSPACE="5" ALT="Note"></TD ><TH ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="CENTER" ><B >WARNING</B ></TH ></TR ><TR ><TD > </TD ><TD ALIGN="LEFT" VALIGN="TOP" ><P >Do your normal backups on their regular schedule. This HOWTO is useless if you don't do that.</P ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ><P >Build yourself a rescue disk. I now use <A HREF="http://www.knoppix.org/" TARGET="_top" >Knoppix</A >. See the notes on <A HREF="distributionspecificnotes.html#KNOPPIX" >Knoppix</A > below. However, Knoppix has a problem: no LVM support. If you want to recover logical volumes, get a distribution that supports them. For this I use <A HREF="http://www.finnix.org/" TARGET="_top" >finnix</A >.</P ><P >In the past, I have used <A HREF="http://www.toms.net/rb" TARGET="_top" >tomsrtbt</A >. It is well documented and packs a lot of useful tools onto one floppy diskette. Unfortunately, the changes I've had to make in the scripts to handle more recent Linux systems cause problems for <A HREF="http://www.toms.net/rb" TARGET="_top" >tomsrtbt</A >. The <A HREF="http://www.toms.net/rb" TARGET="_top" >tomsrtbt</A > 2.0.103 tar is based on <A HREF="http://www.busybox.net/" TARGET="_top" >busybox</A >, so remarks about it may apply to other Linux disties which use busybox.</P ><P >We will call whatever Linux you use the <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"restoration Linux"</SPAN >.</P ><P >Next, figure out how to do the operating system backup you will need so that you can restore your normal backup. I followed Preston's advice and used an Iomega parallel port ZIP drive. The drives get approximately 90 MB of useful storage to a disk. I need about 85 MB to back up my desktop, so a 100MB ZIP drive may be pushing your luck.</P ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="INSTALLINGZIPDRIVE" ></A >3.1. Installing the ZIP Drive</H2 ><P >Installing the ZIP drive is covered in the <A HREF="http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/ZIP-Drive.html" TARGET="_top" >ZIP Drive HOWTO</A >, available at <A HREF="http://www.tldp.org/" TARGET="_top" >the Linux Documentation Project</A > and at its home page, <A HREF="http://www.njtcom.com/dansie/zip-drive.html" TARGET="_top" >http://www.njtcom.com/dansie/zip-drive.html</A >. </P ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="overview.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="creatingthestage1backup.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Overview</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Creating the Stage 1 Back Up</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >