How to Fully Backup

[shingi345]

How do I fully backup my data, OS, etc.? What is a safe way to save and restore my computer?

I use a Thinkpad T480, and it has lately had issues with turning on and off in a continuous loop when I press the power button and freezing when I use my device, if it does end up booting fully.

This is a recent problem.

I apologize if the info I've given isn't technical enough, and I appreciate your help. I'm a music teacher, and I just love Linux and supporting FOSS.

[bradhamilton]

How do I fully backup my data, OS, etc.? What is a safe way to save and restore my computer?

I use a Thinkpad T480, and it has lately had issues with turning on and off in a continuous loop when I press the power button and freezing when I use my device, if it does end up booting fully.

This is a recent problem.

I apologize if the info I've given isn't technical enough, and I appreciate your help. I'm a music teacher, and I just love Linux and supporting FOSS.

I've used Clonezilla for years - it's always saved my cookies when I've lost them from time to time. I use the cloning capability to save to an external hard drive.

: - )

Whatever backup strategy you end up using (and I'm sure you'll get a lot of suggestions here) - the most critical part of backing up is the ability to restore. I was scared the first time I went to restore a clone back on to a system that I trashed, but to my surprise, everything restored perfectly - even my Windows 10 partitions!

It sounds like you might have a hardware issue - if that ends up being the case, then you might want to look at purchasing another machine. It's more important to back up your data rather than the OS. Something like rsync or one of the GUI interfaces to rsync (grsync or Timeshift) might be your best bet. Good luck, however you choose!

[m_pav]

My T560 recently did something similar last year, but it went from a few niggles to no power at all. Recognising this as an internal power system failure, I took it to a trusted circuit repairer who was 100 miles from my home, discovered he loves the older Lenovo T-Series (as do I) and it's been perfect ever since. As I had an unused T460 on hand, I simply swapped out the drives and continued to work almost as if nothing had ever happened till I got it back.

While it's still working, if it runs reliably enough, you could make a snapshot that includes everything, but before you do, check the SMART data of the internal drive first to ensure it's in good condition. Folk round and about in the Social Media pages have stated their Snapshots can be as big as 800+GB with all the data and tested to prove a complete recovery was possible. Of course, they used a 1TB external USB-SSD to make their Live-USB and it took all night to complete the snapshot process.

[MikeR]

Some basic recommendations (with an apology for quoting myself)

1. If your backup schedule includes the word 'about', as in 'about monthly', 'more or less weekly', procrastination will hit you at the most inconvenient time.
And it will happen.
2. If you backup, but have not tested your restore procedure to completion, there in an unfortunate accident waiting for you.
3. Try to have at least three generations of backup, on separate (not necessarily different) media. Keep one copy elsewhere. Always.

Some options:
1. Clone your entire disk to an external device - most fussy to do, easiest to restore.
2. Create snapshot of your entire system on an USB device. Remember to test your restore protocol!! - probably the most convenient to do regularly.
3. Use one on the many backup utilities (e.g. Timeshift, Clonezilla) Be sure everthing is backed up. Try to keep the backup images offline. Might requires a minimal working system to be able to restore.

My $0.02
Mike

[RedGreen925]

but before you do, check the SMART data of the internal drive first to ensure it's in good condition.

And if you want to do that without try to decipher the text output of smartmontools with a graphical tool, the QDiskInfo is great for that.


https://github.com/edisionnano/QDiskInfo

[atomick]

This is MX-Linux,

I am so very surprised that none have yet suggested none other than what MX-Tools provides. MX-Snapshot

Check this out an absolute must. Learn and play with this 2 feature with choice to use ~/home/snapshot as the write out by process creating an .iso of your entire system

you also can change at start page 2 of this tool redirect the out put of the iso result from ~/home/snapshot to say another installed and or Mounted Drive in your system at the time
resulting in a same system image. choice with accounts for "Personal Backup" or choice click 2nd button down " No account backup " for use to sharing. This is my own useful choice
at write out to flash using the also tool beside snapshot " mx-usb-writer " I can write to a fresh flash drive and use that now. All the same as booting the download MX-23.6-ahs.iso feature
same to install too same system or use this to boot and install onto my other desktop box system or laptop and have all 3 devices running the same apps same version update and even
create same account user name at install along creating other accounts that I can play with Linux in a more diverse use to learning and playing with my systems networked via my switch.
in past I used my router but now all at 2.5 gig nic speed all on a private network. All also have wifi devices those I use for online dhcp adapted access.

MX is feature rich. Snapshot makes it the complete distro anyone can learn to adapt too and see its gold mine as to features few to none provide. ( openSuse and Suse have snapshot -hint hint)
one other I believe has a snapshot. Yet their snapshot is nothing the ease of what MX provides. A Deep and high suggest to check this tool out.
click the MX apps button enter snapshot and go from there. or click the tool icon and select MX-Tools and reach the same tool. Try it you will love its ability.

The only other ever OS was Sun Solaris-10/11 with flar as a tool all the similar one can run live whilst the system is running to create a live backup. All w/o having to use a 3rd party tool for backup.

[FullScale4Me]

And if you want to do that without try to decipher the text output of smartmontools with a graphical tool, the QDiskInfo is great for that. https://github.com/edisionnano/QDiskInfo

MX Package Installer has ^ in Debian Backports.

[m_pav]

And if you want to do that without try to decipher the text output of smartmontools with a graphical tool, the QDiskInfo is great for that.

@RedGreen925 The Xfce ISO comes pre-packed with GSmartControl, a GUI tool for the same and qdiskinfo is in the repos, so there's no need to be pointing at external git repos which is a very good way to invite folk to learn how to break their systems, especially when a simple search will show qdiskinfo exists in the standard repos.

QDiskInfo is very much patterned after CrystalDiskInfo, though compared to GSmartControl, it's a little light on what data it can present, however, it claims to be able to read NVME data, which it can do in Windows, but without the packages nvme-cli and/or python-nvme installed, will it really read nvme SMART Data? I'm not on a machine I can test that theory with

[m_pav]

I am so very surprised that none have yet suggested none other than what MX-Tools provides. MX-Snapshot

Did you somehow miss my earlier response?

[atomick]

yeah guess my timeline must be in outer space. Sorry but still a value tool in mention.