[Linux] USB drive as backup

[kerry blalock]

Robert Citek wrote:
> On 07/27/2007 08:11 AM, Unique Wholesale wrote:
>   
>> I tried using tar to back my /home directories from a 80 gig drive to
>> the usb 320gig drive. tar aborted after about 19 gig, giving error
>> that drive was full. I checked, and only showed a portion occupied.
>> Now, using df on the harddrive, the /dev/mapping shows full. However,
>> using other checks, kfilemanager or might be kdiskmanager, the hard
>> drive is on about 40 % used. I used tar cvf file.tar /mnt/usbdrive.
>> This does not preserve the directories under /home.
>>     
>
> Right.  That command would create a file called "file.tar" of
> /mnt/usbdrive in the current directory, which has nothing to do with /home.
> | 9  Activity Reporting        +---------------------+

> I probably have this wrong. Will double check tonight, but I think I had /home instead of /mnt/usbdrive.
I was in the /mnt/usbdrive directory
>> Is there a way to make tar create the sub-directories?
>>     
>
> It does so by default.  Is it possible the USB drive wasn't mounted?
>
>   
No, I can see the home.tar file in the usb directory.
>> Also, not sure if related to above, I cannot startx to kde. Last
>> message on return to prompt is error concernig the usb drive, and
>> trying to fix something. I removed the usb plug, and commented out
>> the line in the fstab file, and still get the error. Not at machine
>> now, so cannot furnish exact error until tonight. I boot up to the
>> login prompt, so still have access to command line.
>>     
>
> Not sure if those are related.  Although one possibility is that the USB
> disk wasn't mounted and you filled up your local disk instead of the USB
> disk.  A full drive might prevent X from starting because it wouldn't be
> able to create temporary files/sockets.  But that's just a guess.
>
>   
>> What I would like to do at this point is get my /home directory files
>> to the usb drive and do a new install on the hard drive. If I can
>> still mount the usb drive, rsync looks like it might work. Again, not
>> sure if it will preserve directories, but at this point I will take
>> just the files.
>>     
> Will do tonight and post.
>   

> Plug in your USB drive, mount it, run this script, and post the contents
> of output.txt:
>
> true ; (
> sudo echo -n
> set -x
> cat /etc/issue.net
> sudo fdisk -l
> mount
> df -hTl
> ) >& output.txt
>
> Regards,
> - Robert
>
> _______________________________________________
> Linux mailing list
> Linux@flux.org
> http://www.flux.org/mailman/listinfo/linux
>
>
>