{SOLVED & FUN} Backup & Recovery

[Condobloke]

I don't know where you are up to....so I will just type

First, click on backup

it will do a bit of fiddling around then ask which drive oyu wish to backup

Single click that to highlight it and then click on next

Then it will ask where you wish to store the backup...nominate the external

This page shows screenshots of RZ ...

Screenshots | Rescuezilla (Clonezilla GUI)

Free bare metal restore solution with graphical interface on a live CD. Point-and-click to backup and restore an entire computer. Bare metal disaster recovery restores all programs, documents and settings. GPL open source.

rescuezilla.com

For the most part , allow the default settings to continue

You are backing up the entire drive, all partitions.......

This where two pc's comes in handy....one to operate on and the other to communicate on !!

 

[Gainer]

The ISO Needs to be put on thumb drive via something like balena etcher or simila

Yes, I understand the process now. Challenge is, as I posted, neither Rescuezilla nor BalenaEtcher will download....Fail messages

Mix up - You asked me if "Did you download RZ from here?" and I had already posted my unsuccess at downloading and error message
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I had also posted...
Wahoo (read as "Excited Thank You!)

two minutes later...

Oops.
rescuezilla-2.5.1-64bit.noble.iso
Failed --- objects.githubusercontent.com --- 11:10AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
So something got messed up going back and forth.

BIG Miss understanding on my part---

I took your message as "... did you download from... " to being asked after my failure and you wanted to know the source site. I answered Yes (meaning I tried from the source site (not a random source). I guess I messed up @Condobloke also as he wrote as if I had successful downloads

Rescuezilla nor BalenaEtcher both failed to download so... went to one of my Windows machines, used the same browser (Firefox) and was able to download Rescuezilla but not BalenaEtcher. Got the "Hmm. We're having trouble finding that site"

 

[Windmill]

Beats me why, do you use wired internet or wifi?
Shouldn't make any diff if the speed is ok though.

 

[Brickwizard]

Beats me why, do you use wired internet or wifi?
Shouldn't make any diff if the speed is ok though.

Can be a Big difference, take my own set-up for an example, My max sync speed [connection to my ISP] is 39Mb hard-wired to my desktop using the best quality Cat 7 all copper cable, I get 36MB, on my old del lappy 802-11G wifi I would get 13MB and with 802-11N150 dongle I would get 28MB and my new laptop 802-11 N300 I get 35MB

 

[Gainer]

Beats me why, do you use wired internet or wifi?
Shouldn't make any diff if the speed is ok though.

I'm on fiberoptic hardware/cables/router/wifi all new last 12 months fully tested once a month. Network/WiFi/Cat5e testing - Infrastructure all good.

Way too new to Linux to even guess what could be going on.

Windows side guessing, site server or some part of infrastructue outside my property, internet up, no errors, tracert and ping, no errors.

 

[Gainer]

Can be a Big difference,

Agreed, but I have not seen that problem after an infrastructure rebuild and new computers about 3 years ago. All eight other machines are Windows11 (hardwired and wifi). All test fine (Speed tests, pings and tracert's with in the top range of speeds) - I'm on fiber and paying for 100 down, 5 up. My ISP put me on a static IP at their cost and with a wink/wink I exceed speeds bothways.

I attempted and succeeded 4 downloads of Rescuezilla Iso on 4 different windows machines. Very fast for a Gig-plus filesize. All exactly the same size. No errors, differences, wired or WiFi, download speed or size.

I am going to start with a reboot, see if something is "stuck". Will return in a bit.

 

[Condobloke]

Rescuezilla nor BalenaEtcher both failed to download so... went to one of my Windows machines, used the same browser (Firefox) and was able to download Rescuezilla but not BalenaEtcher. Got the "Hmm. We're having trouble finding that site

download failures ?!....how, um....1990's !...don't often see that

Ubuntu machine....RZ is a straight forward download....it should give no trouble.

Try again using chrome browser

 

[Windmill]

I've just downloaded the RZ ISO as a test and no prob doing so.
Was using Brave browser.

 

[Condobloke]

The safest way to get chrome browser will be from the repository in ubuntu....i think it is called the software centre...

 

[Gainer]

download failures ?!....how, um....1990's !...don't often see that

and @Windmill will be glad to hear...Oh condobloke you are a genius. You are darned straight. And it took a 1990's solution to a 1990's problem - yup, sweetheart it took the good old-fashioned ReBoot!

Hey windmill, good guess... possible browser problem. That's why I have 8 browsers loaded in Windows. Don't see many browser problems as in years past but you never know. I am overprepared for browser conflicts. Yes, Brave is one - nice browser. I have all of my browsers configured with StartPage Search Engine. Really keeps the outside snooping to a very minimum.

So while I'm yapping I downloaded Rescuezilla and installed the iso on a stick using a preloaded app called "Startup Disk Creator"

Done, Installation complete and no errors.

It's 3:30pm - 10/14/2024 here in the high desert country and close to 100f. Going to Logout, get some hot coffee, some whiskey clean and see what Rescuezilla is all about.

Will leave this logged in for another hour in case there are any last minute thoughts, comments or warnings.

I'm going to go play on my Ubuntu machine.

Happy Newbie

 

[Gainer]

This where two pc's comes in handy....one to operate on and the other to communicate on !!

Good gracious, here I am still pestering you. Hopefully for the last time at least for a day or two. You are in the High Country of New England and I'm in the High Desert of the SW-USA - it's 4:40PM here so early evening for you. Hope I'm not inturrupting dinner.

Anyhow, Finally a good download, Complete install on the stick, reboot and it all comes up and was following your post above and a error came up wanting me to log onto my WiFi

Is a WiFi connection needed for a Recovery Image? If needed OK but sounds like if someone unauthorized used my stick they could/might have access to my WiFi?

Thank you!

 

[Windmill]

Well done mate, nice to know you've got there and can play.
I'm not a whiskey drinker but a nice cold beer will go down no prob.

Wi-fi is not needed for recovery.

 

[Condobloke]

t's 4:40PM here so early evening for you

Nope....11:09 AM

Is a WiFi connection needed for a Recovery Image? If needed OK but sounds like if someone unauthorized used my stick they could/might have access to my WiFi?

RZ depends on having a 'net connection, because RZ is an OS itself. You can connect to Firefox via it so it has to have a connection to be able to do that.
Usually it will just pick up the connection itself, without any prompting. Click on menu and select Firefox.....double click on it to see if it fires up. If it does, all good. if it doesnt, that will tell you that RZ has not latched onto the ethernet/wired connection, and needs to get onto the wireless connection instead.

I am quite certain you have no security concerns with RZ

------------------------------------------------------
Just in case you were having any problems with installing Balena Etcher....tell me. I have a "how to" in the process of being written up.

 

[Windmill]

RZ depends on having a 'net connection, because RZ is an OS itsel

May I ask why.

 

[Condobloke]

May I ask why.

Of course....


I believe they have attempted to make it an "all in one" affair so that there is no need to close the app in order to perhaps find a page with the screenshots on, just in case a user has lost track/forgotten what the next step is etc etc etc

I have used its connection to "go back" and establish a new folder in my external drive......I know that RZ will establish a folder for me, but I prefer to do it myself....then I do not have to rename the folder after it has finished. With somehting as delicate as a full image, I prefer not to rename it. (yeah, I'm fussy/overly particular.....my worst fear is a backup image that will not restore !!!)

 

[Condobloke]

From: https://vegastack.com/tutorials/how-to-install-and-use-balenaetcher-on-debian-11-bullseye/

Follow the tutorial from STEP 2 on....

Using the sudo apt update command, as indicated below, you must first synchronize your local System cache with all available package information from all enabled repositories. You must also use the sudo apt upgrade command if any of the packages need to be upgraded.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
Note: I have bolded the commands to be used in Terminal....Please use Copy and Paste to enter them. They MUST be precisely correct


Step 3

Step 3: Install balenaEtcher​

a) Using AppImage

You can use any file transfer program, such as wget, as demonstrated below, to download the Linux-based AppImage file from the official website.


wget https://github.com/balena-io/etcher....9/balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip

(Now hit enter, type in your password and hit enter again)

After the downloading…. use the following command to list the zip file:


ls -lrt balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip

Then unzip the file using the command below:

unzip balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip


Checking the file's execute permission is the next step. You can open Properties by performing a right-click on the file.
NOTE: you will find the file in /Home ….it will be named : balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip…..it should be seen as soon as open home

Right click on the file….go down to Properies...click on that….and then place a tick in "Allow executing file as program" ….if it is already ticked, leave it alone

Once the file has been granted execute permission, double-clicking it will launch the installer as seen below.

NOTE: in Home, you now see an icon which looks like the below. It will be right beside the file you right clicked on just a moment ago
Double click on the icon and Balena Etcher will open, ready to use
You can follow this tutorial through on the link I inserted at the top of this article

 

[Windmill]

@Condobloke
I'm confused now. RZ works for me offline.
You say RZ needs internet, yes for the browser.
Anything else?

 

[Condobloke]

Rescuezilla / Discussion

sourceforge.net

 

[Gainer]

I wanted to get on the forum topic early this morning. Too much fun and success... Rescuezilla was a dream to use. Complete distraction. Too much fun seeing what folks suggested really happen on MY screen.

Too much coffee and a great time. I made two (2) backups (12 minutes each). Both verified and stored on a 64GB thumb drive.

Copying both to local storage (NAS) and then copies to off-site storage in Canada... out of my "desaster" area. (I'm in Mountain Time Zone - USA). One thumb drive in the safe, the othe one out for more fun and learning - below.

Before I go further I want to say a HUGE THANK YOU to each of you... @Brickwizard @Windmill & @Condobloke for sticking with me through this learning process. OMG I have learned SO much and have had an absolutely wonderfull time. Thank You! Thank You!

Going to make a few more backup so I have as close to what came with the Mini PC for Recouvery as possible. If this keeps up, I'll purchase a couple more of the same Mini PC's. The first thing will be Rescuezilla.

In case, anyone is interested: CyberGeek for Mini PC is what I am using - 16GB RAM - 512GB SSB, etc. Disclosure - no I'm not an affiliate. It just worked for me... and it "only" took these folks at h https://linux.org to get me this far. If anyone else has been following this, I could be 85% to my Christmas goal because of these folks.

Last two items on this thread.

How to test Recovery Images? Just because Rescuefilla validates my backups, do I trust that? Or do I launch a restore from my image back on my Mini PC? If I did that and rebooted back to what I backed up, I guess it worked - if not, then what? That's question 1 to see if I come back to my current Ubuntu.

Yes, I have one more question and then probably best to close off this thread before there is big trouble from the moderators/Administrators/owner (Rob, you can block me from linux.org, but please not from Rob's Backyard BBQ.)

OK... the second reason I was not able to keep my schedule and post this morning is due to the fact of an insufferable amount of pressure from "some" LinuxMint users.

Pressure to create a thumb drive to use Rescuezilla. Well, OK. But I've stated all along that I do not care to use bootable thumb drives. BUT as long as I'm making one for Rescuezilla, why not a bootable LinuxMint stick.

So at 5:30am, with a lot of black coffee, a touch of whiskey and LinuxMint... well 12 hours later... you know what happened. I'm ready to double click the icon on my LinuxMint desktop that is labeled "Install LinuxMint". I guess that's the right way?

Then more Rescuezilla, updates, Bottles, and maybe a VM. OMG, the pressure to get away from Microsoft is almost unbareable. It's almost too much (wink-wink) (truth?? haven't had this much fun with computers in a very long time.)

Thank you!!

PS @Condobloke - love your choice of music

 

[Condobloke]

How to test Recovery Images? Just because Rescuefilla validates my backups, do I trust that? Or do I launch a restore from my image back on my Mini PC? If I did that and rebooted back to what I backed up, I guess it worked - if not, then what? That's question 1 to see if I come back to my current Ubuntu.

When RZ validated the backup, were the words "sfdisk partition table is present"....included in the Verification Summary ?
It would look similar to this, below

If those words were present, then the chances of that backup being RESTORABLE are extremely high
When I first came in contact with RZ, I bit the bullet and went through the process of Restoring the validated backup
Success !
I do not mind telling you , I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I have had occasion to Restore a few times since and in all cases there were no dramas......with one exception.....I found the restored backup would not boot !....so, On the usb with Linux Mint on it....I booted to that...clicked on menu...typed in Boot Repair......'did the thing' there...pretty straightforward....default repair......and that fixed that.

BUT as long as I'm making one for Rescuezilla, why not a bootable LinuxMint stick.

Why not indeed !!

So at 5:30am, with a lot of black coffee, a touch of whiskey and LinuxMint... well 12 hours later... you know what happened. I'm ready to double click the icon on my LinuxMint desktop that is labeled "Install LinuxMint". I guess that's the right way?

Yes, that is the right way. It takes around 20 minutes
You will get a screen asking if you wish to install multi media codecs etc....click on Yes.
You will be asked if you wish to erase what is on the disc and install Linux Mint, or do you wish to install alongside Ubuntu.....! ?. Think about that.
When it is finished, you will be asked iof you wish to continu testing or do you wish to finish the install. When you are ready, click on finish or whatever it says.....follow the instruction to take the usb stick out, and the pc will reboot, and there you have it.

PS @Condobloke - love your choice of music

Thank you .

Keep the two usb sticks....rescuezilla and Linux Mint....they will come in handy. Dont try to put anything else on them.


Dont lose any sleep over the fact that we are up to three pages....i have had many threads have gone longer than that.....just ask @wizardfromoz !!