Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

oupsemma · 2010-04-09 14:24:40

gosa! Gnome-disk-utility (Palimpsest) is also in CrunchBang, you'll see it's the best utility since sliced bread!
Better use it first, and then PhotoRec to recover your pictures; only be aware that you'll have a lot of your week-end dedicated to that!

A screenshot of Palimpsest running on my eeepc 1000H, and all the available features:

Last edited by oupsemma (2010-04-09 14:45:24)

oupsemma · 2010-04-10 08:05:47

there also seems to be the solution to use safecopy (which is in Statler's Synaptic.), because it would skip I/O errors:
http://safecopy.sourceforge.net/
http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20100 … ecopy.html

gosa · 2010-04-10 11:31:55

Hi again!

Here's where I'm at right now:

gnome-disk-utility - can't find ii through my package manager. I did update, I did upgrade - nothing there, no matter if I search for gnome-disk-utility or Palimpsest.
testdisk - to textbased for me - I went through a few options and have no idea what do do more than to scan.
photorec - well... had a chat with the owner of this computer, and it turns out these photos might be possible to restore with the help of friends (seems one of them is me) e.g. she can get them again, once she has a system up and running.

Conclusion - while I hate to have spent a few days of my time (and yours) on this it seems like the proper thing to do now is to just reinstall this machine (with a format of the disk). For that I've chosen Linux Mint, which seems like a good distro for the needs this chick has (no CB there - she wouldn't know how to find apps that she might want to install along the way. Besides - she returns home monday morning (Bilbao is like a bit over 600km's from Barcelona) so I'm on a deadline as well

So - I'm sorry to have wasted your time on this (didn't expect she would drop the "I can get the pictures back thorugh other means"-bomb that late).

I learned a few new things, and when I get the chance I'm going to make sure I incorporate the gnome-disk-utility in my "emergency" usb-stick I have along with photorec. (might be useful in the future, who knows?)

So thank you all for your help - just wished I had more time to follow this one through - hate to give up on a thing like this....

oupsemma · 2010-04-10 13:46:08

Hi, gosa!

I don't know why I thought you were having a Statler live USB, and so checking CrunchBang 9.04 and Ubuntu 9.04 repositories showed me that Palimpsest isn't there (it is in Ubuntu 9.10 and Statler).

If your friend is able to get her pictures back another way, that's nice; often people forget to back them up.

Been learning a few things too, especially that this handy "copy-paste partition" in GParted doesn't work when there are I/O errors, better use safecopy, and that Palimpsest is now available in Debian; so I've not been wasting my time at all!

Happy Mint installing to you!

gosa · 2010-04-10 14:14:31

Well... I only wish the install of Mint was a happy deal.

Turns out the same i/o errors I have copying/pasting partition appear also when I try to install (partitioner, blablabla...) so right now I'm pretty lost. I was hoping I could reformat this disk and "start over" but since it won't even let me do that...

I started google-ing for replacement disks more or less at same time as I made my first attempts att recovery, and it seems there's a solution out there involving an adpater and a compact flash card that looks like it could be interesting, but right now I don't even know if it's the disk itself that's really giving me problems.

But anyway - thanks again! It's been an interesting process...

oupsemma · 2010-04-10 14:25:12

When I've been trying to reformat my borked HD, I have tried various apps to do that, and the only one that was finally successful was the Palimpsest I was having in my Fedora 12 partition; that's why I strongly recommend it.

If you don't want to spend money on another disk, perhaps you could download a live Statler or Fedora 12 (as they both have Palimpsest), put it on a USB stick (you can use dd for both of them), run the stick on your friend's computer and fire up Palimpsest to wipe the Acer partition, then create new partitions for the Mint install?

gosa · 2010-04-10 17:07:58

I am afraid I don't know how to "dd" - that one is not part of my vocabulary yet...

But I did however try to boot up with Fedora 12 that I made into a live usb stick with the help of their dedicated program for doing that.
It went into a permanent sleep because of:

"tried to remove a fb that we didn't own"

Guess I'll try Statler live before I give it up completely

(I lost count of how many live cd's of different linux flavours I've downloaded the last couple of days...)

FiniteStateMachine · 2010-04-10 17:13:52

gosa wrote:

I am afraid I don't know how to "dd" - that one is not part of my vocabulary yet...

dd is just a command used to make bootable USB drives (in this case):

A suitable tutorial for statler is here:

http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/statler … stallation

oupsemma · 2010-04-10 18:21:11

1.Assuming you have downloaded the Fedora 12 in your CrunchBang 9.04 partition (Windows doesn't have dd, you have to download and install it from here: http://www.chrysocome.net/dd ; so better do it with a Linux distro for the simplicity of use)

2. Assuming that you've downloaded it in your user folder, under Downloads

3. Assuming that you have plugged your USB stick in, and using GParted for that (as it is graphical, it's easier to use), you know the name of your stick (sdb usually), than have it unmounted (right-click for that in GParted)

Then open a terminal and type:
$ sudo dd if=/home/gosa/Downloads/Fedora-12-i686.iso of=/dev/sdb

Of course, change the path if the directory to which you've downloaded the iso is different, and also if your stick is not sdb (and don't put any numbers, like sdb1 or sdb2)
A few minutes later, your stick will be ready

But in CrunchBang 9.04 you should have Unetbootin, that also works under Windows:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Detailled screenshots for W & L are there: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/#install

gosa · 2010-04-10 18:46:21

FiniteStateMachine wrote:

gosa wrote:
I am afraid I don't know how to "dd" - that one is not part of my vocabulary yet...
dd is just a command used to make bootable USB drives (in this case):
A suitable tutorial for statler is here:
http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/statler … stallation

might be that the tutorial is suitable... but I don't get it.

I kinda already got stuck here:

sudo ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/*usb*

If this is the way to get statler onto an usb - well... then I guess I'm staying with 9.04

oupsemma · 2010-04-10 20:13:07

If this is the way to get statler onto an usb - well... then I guess I'm staying with 9.04

If you want a less scary method to know the exact name of your USB key, then plug it into your running CrunchBang 9.04, launch GParted and you will have all your devices listed there: your hard drive with its Windows and CrunchBang partitions, and the other device (first unplug other USB devices that might be there, so that you only get the stick you want to use).
Keep the name of it (should be sdb or sdc), right-click on the stick (still in GParted) and unmount it ("unmount").

Then exit GParted, open a terminal and use dd to write the iso to your stick.

In which folder have you been downloading the iso you want to use?
What is the name of your usb stick?
With answers to these 2 questions, giving you the precise command to write the iso with dd will be possible, and you'll have your CrunchBang Stalter USB stick.

gosa · 2010-04-11 17:40:14

Yeah, but that's where I got stuck... it's not really the "scary" nature about working in the terminal, but that's it's so unforgiving about errors. Either the thing you do works or you're told that "nope, sorry" - mostly in a way that doesn't point you in a clear enough direction (I suppose that's where experience comes in).

I tried to enter the command:

sudo ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/*usb*

Knowing my usb-stick is sdb and the partition on it is sdb1 I tried to fit that into the above line... and all it returns after trying different combinations is:

"No such file or directory"

I guss what I'm missing (from that guide) is:

So... lets say your usb is sdb - then the line would be "...."

Anyway - in the end I did manage to get the Statler onto the usb-stick.

So - I booted the patient with Statler live, ran an update and installed gnome-disk-utility
Now, I don't know if this is really possible - updating a live session, but I seemed to have it installed as long as I don't reboot (did that - had to start all over again - can't say I didn't know it, just didn't think)

Starting palimpsest I get the following error:

(palimpsest:4960) libgdu-WARNING **: Couldn't get daemon properties
Error creating pool: (unspecified error)
(palimpsest:4960): Palimpsest-CRITICAL **: Bailing out

And that's it. The "Disk utility Screen" is all greyed out.

So - my doubt is if it's really possible to do this from the live environment or if I have to install Statler to another usb-stick first, and then do it all again?
Or should I do a "sudo apt-get upgrade" on the live session and then try again?

oupsemma · 2010-04-11 17:59:24

Upgrade first, as there will be no kernel upgrade to break everything, and check there whether you have all the recommended dependencies for Palimpsest: http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/gnome-disk-utility

If you still can't do anything with Palimpsest, then install Statler on another USB stick.

I guess it's being a long geeky week-end for you! smile

gosa · 2010-04-11 19:15:34

I guess it's being a long geeky week-end for you!

- You got that part right! big_smile

The good thing is that the owner of the netbook decided she doesn't need to bring it back home right now after all (guess she's got better things to use as book-ends at home) which of course means I get a chance to follow this through...

Anyway - Already beat you to the upgrade part... but it didn't let me do the whole upgrade for lack of space or something like that... (Didn't write the error down)

But dependencies? Don't the package manager take care of that? It does in Crunchbang 9.04 don't it?

Well... next step is to try to get Statler onto a second usb-stick.
We'll se what happens after that...

In other words: I'll be back!

oupsemma · 2010-04-11 19:37:38

Oops, forgot to tell you take a stick 4GB huge (at least bigger than 2GB), otherwise you might lack some space!
Hope the experiment with the upgrade process on the live stick would have told you that.
( If you need some more help, I'll be back tomorrow; as on this side of the pond it's bed time).
Good luck!

gosa · 2010-04-11 20:12:08

All is well so far... using an 8gb stick for this one.
Statler is installed, system is booted and I'm doing the upgrade right now, which will be the last thing I do tonight since I believe I'm on the same side of the pond as you are.
(Just a bit south of your border I suppose...)

Thanks a lot for your great support so far!

gosa · 2010-04-13 11:53:59

Ok... I'm not sure but I'm beginning to think I've done what I can for this netbook.

Palimpsest returns the exact same errors as I've seen before: output/input error trying to delete partitions or format the drive.
Time to hit google for a CF to ZIF (at least that's what I think it was called) for an alternative solution - best case scenario here in Barcelona...

Thanks again for all the help I've gotten trying to sort this out.

oupsemma · 2010-04-13 20:22:31

Sorry to read it didn't work, hope you'll find another solution and have an OS back on this Acer.

CrunchBang Linux

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#26 2010-04-09 14:24:40

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#27 2010-04-10 08:05:47

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#28 2010-04-10 11:31:55

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#29 2010-04-10 13:46:08

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#30 2010-04-10 14:14:31

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#31 2010-04-10 14:25:12

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#32 2010-04-10 17:07:58

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#33 2010-04-10 17:13:52

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#34 2010-04-10 18:21:11

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#35 2010-04-10 18:46:21

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#36 2010-04-10 20:13:07

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#37 2010-04-11 17:40:14

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#38 2010-04-11 17:59:24

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#39 2010-04-11 19:15:34

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#40 2010-04-11 19:37:38

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#41 2010-04-11 20:12:08

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#42 2010-04-13 11:53:59

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

#43 2010-04-13 20:22:31

Re: Backing up a netbook with the help of CB on USB [End of line reached]

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