Augh

arew264 · 2008-08-11 02:32:47

I just got a new motherboard and decided I should wipe my system, move to arch 64 bit, and set up all sorts of paranoid security.
I made backups of everything in /home, my music collection in /mnt/mp3 (don't ask why I put it there, I don't know), and all my configuration files in /etc.
The install was painless, I had a new pretty system with KDE4 and everything.

Then I went to restore the files I had backed up.

I had backed them up using tar, for example, in /home I ran `tar -czvf /mnt/smb/anothercomp/path/home.tar.gz *`.
The backups were saved to a box on my network running Vista. I had a shared folder on the desktop, and the hard drive had enough space for me to save everything.
I went to restore mnt.tar.gz. It was corrupted about halfway through. I still haven't gotten a definite answer on home.tar.gz, but when I opened it with WinRAR on the windows box, it was corrupted about halfway through.

Am I some kind of idiot that can't make backups right? I just don't see how this can happen at all. I've probably lost about 125 GB of data from home.tar.gz (I had about 250 GB of junk in there). I had a copy of my music collection on another box (that's only 12GB), so that survived.

What am I doing wrong here? I can't spot anything. I mounted the share on the Vista box with smb4k, but that just uses sudo and mounts a smbfs.

fukawi2 · 2008-08-11 02:53:46

Sounds like Vista borked them... OTOH, I'm not sure how tar likes such large amounts of data ('large' compared to when tar was written). Is it only WinRAR that barfs at the archive? Have you tried it with tar? A 32-bit version of tar?

I would have (and do) just use rsync to send everything to a remote PC... If one file gets corrupt, then at least it's only THAT file, not the whole archive.

(btw, a new motherboard invoked all that enthusiasm? )

arew264 · 2008-08-11 03:15:07

I was planning a wipe and the paranoid security install beforehand, the new mobo happened to end up at the same time, and the 64 bit part was because of the mobo.
WinRAR barfed on the home backup, still checking tar on that one. I can't save it to my hard drive and still have space to extract it so I have to extract it over the gigabit network.

The etc backup was fine, but it was also less than a megabyte.

The /mnt/mp3 backup was bad according to tar, didn't try WinRAR. I just copied it from the clone of it on my laptop. Trying it in WinRAR now.

I haven't tried 32 bit tar at all yet. I... DO have a box I could try it on...
And I'm pretty sure tar should have at least done fine with the 12 GB music collection. It was gzip that had the error actually, it "violated the format" or something to that effect.

Last edited by arew264 (2008-08-11 03:21:34)

arew264 · 2008-08-24 04:04:14

OMG OMG OMG
I officially hate Vista, but on the other hand, I have /home back.
It's funny, I backed up with (in /home) `tar -czf /mnt/smb/PATH_TO_MOUNTED_SHARE/home.tar.gz *`
Copying the file over the network to the linux box didn't work.
This did: (in /home) `tar -xzf /mnt/smb/PATH_TO_MOUNTED_SHARE/home.tar.gz`

Apparantly Vista does something strange when it stores the file, but if you untar/gzip it in the same way that you tarred/gzipped it, that oddity is undone.

SLKDK · 2008-08-24 06:28:32

Sorry dude, why even backup your home? Home should always be on its own partition, and when reinstall, then use a new username, and then copy the selected file/folders from your old username-folder i home. I NEVER format my home partition, and NEVER back it up - and never lost anything. I just copy my /etc and such to my home partition.

Easy.. Maybe its Vista fault, but I would blame my self if I was you.....

fukawi2 · 2008-08-24 07:23:17

SLKDK wrote:

Sorry dude, why even backup your home? Home should always be on its own partition, and when reinstall, then use a new username, and then copy the selected file/folders from your old username-folder i home. I NEVER format my home partition, and NEVER back it up - and never lost anything. I just copy my /etc and such to my home partition.
Easy.. Maybe its Vista fault, but I would blame my self if I was you.....

What's the plan when the hard drive itself dies? Or the whole PC gets fried? Or stolen?

Not making a backup just because you have a dedicated partition for /home is pretty poor. It's better to backup too much than not enough. You can always ignore or delete excessive backups later. You can't make them later when you need them and didn't make them in the first place.

Last edited by fukawi2 (2008-08-24 07:24:17)

Barghest · 2008-08-24 08:59:08

SLKDK wrote:

when reinstall, then use a new username, and then copy the selected file/folders from your old username-folder i home..

Sorry for hijacking this thread but why should one take another user name? Can't I just mount the old /home partition into a fresh installation using the same name? I thought of this because the /home files belongs to that user.

arew264 · 2008-08-24 16:17:35

Well, see, I got a new hard drive and I'm only moving over what I have to on /home because of the new paranoid security policy.
Having a partition that you reuse in installs promotes bloat and causes me to be a pack rat, I have no reason to blame myself.
If nothing else, reusing the home partition is a security risk becayse any hacked files in the old install are present in the new one.

Eventually your hard drive will fail and you WILL have yourself to blame.

arew264 · 2008-08-24 20:27:15

On a side note, I'm currently quite happy because I ditched the ATI integrated graphics on the mobo (a screen update would randomly lock the system for a moment, which was really uncool when I was listening to something on Amarok).
I got 128MB of RAM back, my system runs smoothly, I can use all KDE 4 desktop effects, and I got away from Catalyst (I've never gotten it to fully work on any card, nVidia works perfectly).

SLKDK · 2008-08-24 21:21:09

Barghest wrote:

SLKDK wrote:
when reinstall, then use a new username, and then copy the selected file/folders from your old username-folder i home..
Sorry for hijacking this thread but why should one take another user name? Can't I just mount the old /home partition into a fresh installation using the same name? I thought of this because the /home files belongs to that user.

Ofcourse.. But there could be some minor problems, eg:

In your current installation, you have Gnome. And have Pidgin (or whatever) as autostart.

No you reinstall, same home, but you havent installed Pidgin (or whatever again). When Gnome starts it makes an error.

Other constallations may even not work. But the simple solution is to just rename the conf file in your home and it works.

SLKDK · 2008-08-24 21:21:56

fukawi2 wrote:

SLKDK wrote:
Sorry dude, why even backup your home? Home should always be on its own partition, and when reinstall, then use a new username, and then copy the selected file/folders from your old username-folder i home. I NEVER format my home partition, and NEVER back it up - and never lost anything. I just copy my /etc and such to my home partition.
Easy.. Maybe its Vista fault, but I would blame my self if I was you.....
What's the plan when the hard drive itself dies? Or the whole PC gets fried? Or stolen?
Not making a backup just because you have a dedicated partition for /home is pretty poor. It's better to backup too much than not enough. You can always ignore or delete excessive backups later. You can't make them later when you need them and didn't make them in the first place.

I don't do backup, real men cries when the shit brakes..

arew264 · 2008-08-24 22:40:39

SLKDK wrote:

fukawi2 wrote:
SLKDK wrote:
Sorry dude, why even backup your home? Home should always be on its own partition, and when reinstall, then use a new username, and then copy the selected file/folders from your old username-folder i home. I NEVER format my home partition, and NEVER back it up - and never lost anything. I just copy my /etc and such to my home partition.
Easy.. Maybe its Vista fault, but I would blame my self if I was you.....
What's the plan when the hard drive itself dies? Or the whole PC gets fried? Or stolen?
Not making a backup just because you have a dedicated partition for /home is pretty poor. It's better to backup too much than not enough. You can always ignore or delete excessive backups later. You can't make them later when you need them and didn't make them in the first place.
I don't do backup, real men cries when the shit brakes..

Oh, okay, so your bad advice is excused by the fact that from your perspective it's funny when I lose all my files?

fukawi2 · 2008-08-25 07:42:22

SLKDK wrote:

I don't do backup, real men cries when the shit brakes..

I realise this is some form of humour - but passing bad advice off to other people isn't very helpful.

If you're happy to risk all your data like that, well then it's none of our business, but to try and get someone else who does value their data to do the same thing just isn't quite right / fair.

SLKDK · 2008-08-25 09:33:07

fukawi2 wrote:

SLKDK wrote:
I don't do backup, real men cries when the shit brakes..
I realise this is some form of humour - but passing bad advice off to other people isn't very helpful.
If you're happy to risk all your data like that, well then it's none of our business, but to try and get someone else who does value their data to do the same thing just isn't quite right / fair.

No, cause we werent talking about backups - for the sake of backup. But that a reinstall was gone wrong because of making a backup.
I just told how I reinstalled my system without making backups but just kept my home partition intakt.

finferflu · 2008-08-25 09:37:13

As far as backing up data goes, I think one is free to backup or not at his/her own discretion, being aware of the possibility that something may go wrong, and files could go lost.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-08-11 02:32:47

Augh

#2 2008-08-11 02:53:46

Re: Augh

#3 2008-08-11 03:15:07

Re: Augh

#4 2008-08-24 04:04:14

Re: Augh

#5 2008-08-24 06:28:32

Re: Augh

#6 2008-08-24 07:23:17

Re: Augh

#7 2008-08-24 08:59:08

Re: Augh

#8 2008-08-24 16:17:35

Re: Augh

#9 2008-08-24 20:27:15

Re: Augh

#10 2008-08-24 21:21:09

Re: Augh

#11 2008-08-24 21:21:56

Re: Augh

#12 2008-08-24 22:40:39

Re: Augh

#13 2008-08-25 07:42:22

Re: Augh

#14 2008-08-25 09:33:07

Re: Augh

#15 2008-08-25 09:37:13

Re: Augh

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