Backing up a dual-boot system - how?

[beanzontoast]

I'm about to install a second hd to a base unit which will be running Windows and Ubuntu in a dual-boot configuration.

Would I be better partitioning the existing Windows drive and adding the Ubuntu to it or should I put each OS on its own drive?

What's the best way to back up the entire computer if it has more than one hd / more than one OS on a drive / different OS on two drives?

 

[2Loose]

IMHO it is best to put each OS on a different disk wherever possible. This helps make it a lot easier to deal with if\when you accidentally bork on of them - far less likely to take the other one down with it. I also don't use a bootloader to choose which OS to boot from, when each OS is on a different disk I can use the BIOS disk selector (F11 in my case).

One of the easiest ways to backup in this case is just to 'image' each disk in turn. You can use a disk imaging application to image both disks, ragardles sof what actually sits on them, e.g windows application can image linux disk as well as windows disk and vice versa.

 

[beanzontoast]

IMHO it is best to put each OS on a different disk wherever possible. This helps make it a lot easier to deal with if\when you accidentally bork on of them - far less likely to take the other one down with it. I also don't use a bootloader to choose which OS to boot from, when each OS is on a different disk I can use the BIOS disk selector (F11 in my case).

One of the easiest ways to backup in this case is just to 'image' each disk in turn. You can use a disk imaging application to image both disks, ragardles sof what actually sits on them, e.g windows application can image linux disk as well as windows disk and vice versa.

Never thought of that. I think I'll keep them on different disks then. Sounds easier all round.

 

[Shaun]

I'll second the disk imaging for backup. We use Acronis at work, but there are others.

Depending on the size of your drives you could pick up an external 1TB USB drive fairly cheap and use it for both images.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Shaun]

£55 in Tesco's ....

 

[beanzontoast]

Cheers for that Shaun . I've got a 1tb external drive already and up to now have used Macrium Reflect Free Edition to back up my C: drive.

What I'm not clear about is whether I'd be able to back up both drives to this 1tb external in a single operation if I went down the conventional appraoch of setting up dual boot by using grub - and equally importantly, whether I'd be able to restore the dual boot setup in one go from this backup if the worst happened.

Any thoughts?

 

[Shaun]

AFAIK the disk imaging works on a disk-to-disk basis, so you'd be able to take an image of your C: drive (for example) as one operation, then you'd need to do a second operation for your second drive; although I could be wrong on this, there may be an imaging app that will do multiple disks in one-shot.

If you've got USB2.0 it should be quite quick.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[twowheelsgood]

Clonezilla.

Backs multiple partions including the boot sector or whatever boot mangement you have installed. It's free and can run from USB. The interface is a bit clunky, but it works.