Remastering a Boot CD to do a bit stream back up

[jowens]

As most of you if soon figure out, I am a newbie. I am trying to figure out a way to remaster a bootable CD that will automatically boot and do a complete bit stream back up of the primary HD (NTFS) to an USB external HD. I have about 80 Win2K workstations that I have to do a monthly back up and money is tight. Probally just need to figure out how to do the dd command. Any help greatly apprecated. Thanks, Jeff

[UnderScore]

You can use the Remastering HOWTO in the Knoppix.net documentation. Or if you don't want to get into the "dirty details" of the entire remastering process then I would suggest that you try this HOWTO that I wrote. It uses a menu that wraps around the copying, chroot & mkisofs commands so that you do not have to type long complicated commands. I did not write the menu script, only the the HOWTO. Here is the URL http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13867.

As for the backup process, the dd command sounds right. You should be able to create a script that mounts the source hd, mounts the destination hd, and then performs a dd command to back it up. I would store that script (mybackup) in /etc/init.d/. Then I would create a link to that script in runlevel 5.
ln -s /etc/init.d/mybackup /etc/rc5.d/S80mybackup That script would be executed right before Knoppix starts up KDE. If you want to start the backup script after KDE starts up you will probably have to edit the /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession script as it controls how & when KDE is loaded.

If instead you want to force Knoppix to the command line by default, then take a look at isolinux.cfg at (KnoppixCD-Root)/boot/isolinux/. That file controls how the Knoppix bootup profiles.
(This example is from Knoppix 3.6)
Edit that file with a text editor and see the following:

1: DEFAULT linux24
2: APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 initrd=minirt24.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
I am not absolutley positive, but you will need to insert your cheatcode 2 in line #2 so that it will boot into runlevel 2 for the command prompt.
I hope this helps.
James

[jowens]

Thanks, John for the fast response and the points I will give it a shot. Jeff

[jowens]

James, Just noticed that I addressed you as John. I applogize stupid mistake while doing three conversations at once. Thanks again for the advice. Jeff

[UnderScore]

James, Just noticed that I addressed you as John. I applogize stupid mistake while doing three conversations at once. Thanks again for the advice. Jeff Hey, thats no problem at all. If you could, please keep us in the loop in regards to your progress.
Thanks,
James