Restoring files to a new computer.

[John G]

My old compaq computer had Linux mint 17.1 on it when the hard drive suddenly failed. I had backed up each week to an external drive. As a replacement I got a Dell studio 1749 on which I put Linux mint 18.3 with a stronger password. When I try to restore the backup the computer doesn't see it. I can get to the folder in the backup drive but it is blank. My knowledge of Terminal is limited to copy and paste. Can anyone help.

 

[Rob]

Hi John and welcome to Linux.org!

Are you able to go into a little more detail on what steps you're taking?

You said that you can get to the folder on the backup drive, but it is empty - are you using terminal to come to that conclusion or a file explorer type application?

Thanks!
Rob

 

[John G]

Thanks Rob,
The folder is not empty if I double click on it. It is full of .gz files
however when i go to restore in Backup Tool and navigate to the folder and click on it, it comes up blank. Is there a way to decompress these files and then return the ones that I need by drag and drop?
With thanks,
John G

 

[arochester]

How did you make the backup? What is inside the folder? Individual files? Something compressed?

 

[John G]

Thanks arochester, I used the backup in linux mint 17.1 and selected the backup folder that I had created on an external drive for a weekly backup. The files are .gz files in volumes.
John G

 

[arochester]

Have you got Timeshift? https://itsfoss.com/backup-restore-linux-timeshift/

 

[John G]

No I can install it but the old linux mint 17.1 HDD is caput. My new one (on a different computer) has 18.3 on it. Do you think that Timeshift will be able to read the 17.1 backup files? ----I have just read your link in "It's Foss" and it looks as though it might do the job. I will try it.
with thanks,
John G

 

[atanere]

Thanks Rob,
The folder is not empty if I double click on it. It is full of .gz files
however when i go to restore in Backup Tool and navigate to the folder and click on it, it comes up blank. Is there a way to decompress these files and then return the ones that I need by drag and drop?

Hi John, and welcome! I use Linux Mint, but I'm not familiar with their backup/restore app. Since you did your backups with Mint 17.1, I'm not sure that the Timeshift program will restore these files, but you may want to use Timeshift for your future backups.

Let's try this... copy one of your .gz files to a temporary place so you are working with a copy, not the original file. Then, open up your File Manager (called Caja in Linux Mint) and right-click on the .gz copy you made. There is an option to "Extract here". Try that to see if your file is now restored in the temporary location. This seems to work with a group of files, or the contents of a whole folder (but it doesn't seem that a folder can be gzipped itself). I found that if I used "Extract here" twice on the same file, it creates a duplicate rather than overwriting the file, but you may want to use caution if extracting directly back into your new hard drive. This method may work okay for your personal files, but I'm not sure if it will restore Software if you also used that option.

Hope this gets you going....

Cheers

 

[wizardfromoz]

Just a heads up

(Wizard appears in a puff of smoke, trips over John's discarded HDD, curses)

Hi @John G and welcome to linux.org

You already have Timeshift on your 18.3, it ships with it.

It won't help you here, but is invaluable for the future. Read my Tute here https://www.linux.org/threads/timeshift-similar-solutions-safeguard-recover-your-linux.15241/ ... and ask any questions on Timeshift there.

Can you tell us which Desktop Environment (DE) you were using then, and are using now? They include MATE, Cinnamon, Xfce and KDE, you can tell from the Welcome Screen.

I can always put 17.1 on once I know, use the inbuilt backup tool to back up a few files, and then see "what's what and who's who" as my late Mother used to say.

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz ... that's DownUnder

 

[atanere]

Ah, that Wizard fellow always makes me scratch my head and realize things I forget, or things I just plain get wrong. This time... I forgot.... to check what Desktop you were using. I'm using MATE which has the Caja file manager. If you're using Cinnamon, then it uses Nautilus. Luckily, they both will let you "Extract here" if you right-click on the .gz files. And you can select more than one, or select all, and then it will extract all those selected.

Cheers

 

[John G]

Thanks atanere. I will do the things that you suggest. I really only need the "Home" folder.----- I have now tried this, some of the folders work ok, but some get a double lock on them. ie. a lock symbol and a cross needing root permission to open.There are so many files that it seems very time consuming
John G
Thanks also wizardfromoz, I was using Mate desktop on my old computer and have kept with Mate for the new one.
John G

 

[atanere]

Okay, John... very good. I think the gzipped files have the same ownership as when you backed them up, so if they belong to root now, then they belonged to root then. It is a fairly simple matter (from the command line) to change the ownership of a folder and all of the files inside if you wish to do that, in order to make it easier to extract them. The chown command is the tool for that. Let us know if you want more info on that. Or, another trick that might help is to open Caja as root. Do this by opening a terminal and using sudo, like:

sudo caja

Then when you right-click and try to extract those locked files, they should extract okay, I think. I am a little confused though because I seem to be able to extract files that belong to root even when I run Caja as a regular user, so I'm not quite sure why you don't seem to be able to do this. It works even if I create the .gz file as root too. One difference is that I only see a lock symbol, and not a cross... so I'm not sure about that right now, and maybe it is telling us something.

Cheers

 

[John G]

Thanks atanere, It may be that I changed the password from the old computer to the new one to make it stronger, Also, some of the folders when I extract them seem to end up as a column of numbers. I am not very experienced with Terminal so I will try the sudo caja command.-----I have now tried the sudo command and that certainly works no more locked files, however there are hundreds of files each with a fragmented bit of the original folder. its like doing a 1000 piece jigsaw! Is it possible to sudo the backup tool. My worry is that the backup contains the 17.1 file system which may mess up my current 18.3 file system.---- Actually when I look at the manifest the pathways are all from the home folder--------now another thought. The backup file is on an external drive an must think it is owned by root of the old computer. Is there a way to change its root ownership to the new computer? It may then restore in the normal way. Sorry my mind is going off on many tangents.
John G

 

[atanere]

Edit: The cross symbols may be telling us that the "permissions" are set too tight to allow you the access you need. Another command line tool, chmod, can be used to change those permissions. Both chmod and chown can be used recursively to change all of your files at once... but I'm not sure if this is what you really want to do. It is kind of a bandaid fix to make your access easier since the restore tool is not working as expected.

 

[atanere]

Thanks atanere, It may be that I changed the password from the old computer to the new one to make it stronger, Also, some of the folders when I extract them seem to end up as a column of numbers. I am not very experienced with Terminal so I will try the sudo caja command.
John G

No, it's not the password. The permissions are a different thing... applied to each file and folder independently, as is ownership.

Edit: if you changed user names from your 17.1 install to something different in 18.3... that could affect the permissions. I think that gzip files store all of that when they are created.