Dual Boot backup questions

Dear Forum ,
Hi , I have a dual boot Ubuntu Fiesty Faun and Windows 98SE set up with a spare third disk which I am using as backup . The 98SE system is backed up as a snapshot on to a FAT32 partition (Hdc4 or Windows D to an image file on that third disk with Norton Ghost 2003 , which I know from previous usage is a reliable recovery mechanism . The Ubuntu system has been backed up to an Hdc1 partition using the SystemRescueCD and I have two files /hdc1/my-hdb1.000 and /hdc1/my-hdb3.000 both given as MIME type application/octet-stream . My questions are :
1.does this look reasonable ?
2.am I right in thinking I need not back up the MBR via Partimage as this is lodged on my 98SE drive (Hda1 or Windows C
3.will I need to backup the partition tables as I have backed up to hdc1 and plan to restore the my-hdb* files back to their original partitions
4.am I right to ignore the SWAP partition ?
Any comments very welcome please , as a newbie I've spent a couple of weeks on the Ubuntu system getting the peripherals to work and so on and would appreciate a little reassurance before I restore from the /Hdc1/ backup . I realise the questions might be more relevant on the Ubuntu forum but that's so frantic sometimes it doesn't always help much ,
Derek

 

Hello,

If you've backed up GRUB / LILO, then you prolly don't need to backup MBR, although if you are imaging a partition, MBR can be part of it.

Swap is really not important - save as a placeholder - since it has to have the right name / number to be properly accessed. If you back it up - mere few Kbs - you will save the sectors for it, if you happen to restore, allowing the system to more easily pick up its bits should it ever come to that.

I'll post more later, if you like... gotta go eat.

Mrk

 

Dear Mrk ,
Hi , thank you for your kind reply , if you have a little more time perhaps you might confirm some things for me . GRUB I am assuming resides on my HDB1 EXT3 filesystem effectively in /hdb1/boot/grub/menu.lst and so should be part of the My-Hdb1.000 restore . MBR on my 98SE disk I think is simply patched to point to this file rather than my 98SE startup files directly as previously , and if the pointer does become invalidated via a restore I hope it should be easily regenerated by reinstalling GRUB from the Ubuntu install CD , which has a recovery routine for this supplied . I am in the process of converting to Ubuntu and am a pensioner not wishing to spend unnecessarily on the exercise (the extra HDDs I've bought on E-Bay) and I'm thinking of leaving my main data storage on FAT32 visible to both systems with Firefox and Open Office interchangeable . My 98SE defrag seems to work fine with all of the FAT32 partitions , so would you see any on going problems with this approach ?

Derek

 

Hello,

Grub has two stages.

Stage 1 resides in Sector 1 of a hard disk, what you would call MBR. It points to Stage 2, which contains all the sweet boot info. Stage 2 usually resides on the root partition of your linux install, under /boot/grub/menu.lst but it does not have to.

Besides, if you have tens of Linuxes installed, all of them will have Stage 2 on the root partition. You can choose which one to load.

If the MBR get screwed, stage 1 will get screwed also - but not stage 2. Therefore, you will be able to easily restore it - either manually via command prompt in grub or using a tool like Super Grub Disk (need a link? tell me).

So your backup looks fine.

Mrk