h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"The problem is that I can't make an image with a linux program until I've installed Linux."

The reason I linked to G4L was that they said it was available as a "Live CD" - you boot with the CD and do all your backing up and restoring. It shouldn't ever be installed on your hard drive unless you're using it to image machines in bulk across a network.

Not that one, the enclosure I bought has got a restore/backup program though PcCloneEx. I don't like live cd because they are too slow.

I'm looking at Fedora now, because redhat is distinguished and probably been around longer than M$.

Looking at the website for PcCloneEx, it apparently automatically backs up incrementally. This is the good bit:

If your C: drive fails then it automatically pops up giving choices for restore.

So how? it doesn't say where you install it and it's supposed to work for any op system.

Looks way too easy to me.

AMD do 64 bit linux drivers and so do nvidia The only problem is I won't be able to get an internet connection because Huwai don't; I've only got nine months left on that contract though.

What Huwai device do you have? Do you still have your old computer? If so, set up your old computer with a 32-bit Linux, a good firewall and a network connection to your new 64-bit machine. That way you have added security and if you use BitTorrent you can set up a client to run in the background all the time on the 32-bit machine while you do other stuff on your "main" machine.

Unfortunately I gave my old pc away to my brother after installing Ubuntu on it, I wished I didn't because then I wouldn't be waiting for a hard drive.

I've checked everywhere and even a website that gives code to modify device drivers and this dongle/modem isn't included but others are.

Have you tried this?: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ndiswrapper/

I don't know if it's 64-bit compatible...

Basically, it allows you to use Windows network drivers in Linux, for devices that don't have their own native support.

It's worth a try.

This kid explains everything clearer than anybody, I didn't even know the windows disc can resize partitions:

http://www.youtube.com/user/reponzo01

Got my fiddly hard thing working, but the software is rubbish. Two hours backup only for it too fail right at the end; I read it didn't work here.

http://www.geekstogo.com/2008/06/29/portable-hard-drive-backup-solutions/

32Mb of dead sectors; should I complain about that.

Now I've got a headache, I've got a img.gz image of my harddrive which I'm putting on the ext, but how do I get it off again.

Are all images the same, if I use linux live application will it restore the disk.

Another problem; the ext disc wasn't recognised by bios.

"Are all images the same, if I use linux live application will it restore the disk."

It should.

"Another problem; the ext disc wasn't recognised by bios"

The Live CD should mount it OK. Go ahead and try it - you should be able to see the drive and the file on it without actually restoring it.

I was just partitioning the external when with 9 seconds to go it lost contact with the drive.

I was using the wrong usb, one driven by windows before; I've only got 10 so needed to rearrange a couple.

Gparted crashes or the drive does at 9 seconds to go every time.

Done it now I'm going to be sick

I would have thought if you had a live disc copied into the boot partition then it would be just the same as loading from a cd.

But mine doesn't boot, but then security was doing naughty things when I saved it.

Is there a difference?

Found out why; it is because of the use of drive letters especially in config.sys.

Found a new Op sys called GuFi, but this means partitioning again and it is tiring.

Do it later

"I would have thought if you had a live disc copied into the boot partition then it would be just the same as loading from a cd."

You need to install "Grub" on the bootsector of the first drive, then create a bootlist entry for the partition you copied the disc image to.

Google "Grub bootloader"...

I know about GRUB, you have to alter the entry for windows to point to hd(0,0) rather than hd(0,1)

The partitions thing is what I mean't by have to have backup. Naturally shrinking and moving up the first partition to make space for a new boot partition, except it didn't relabel and I didn't see this until after a couple of attempts. So I formatted and shrunk but not move.

Got slax with wine and a file decompressor, will this run g4l

Mint looks nice.

Unetbootin is rubbish so is FUSBi in fact so far I haven't found a booting program that works.

First of all I had a 1 Gig NTFS boot partition called /, didn't work, then a 1.5 Gig ext2 partition called / with a 512Mb extended partition called /home and a 512Mb linux-swap partition called /swap. But Netbbotin and his mate couldn't see them.

So I thought since these applications are really for Flash drives and they use FAT I made a 2.5 GiG FAT32 partition. NOPE

Not only that but these applications mess with bios.

I forgot; it's linux and you edit the MBR easy linux. But after all the trouble I end up with something I can't use anyway. It can't see further than it's own boot.

Somebody said linux is easy.