Can you make a bootable recovery partition for Ubuntu?

Question

Okay, there's tons of questions about recovery partitions, but most, if not all pertain to Windows. My question is, "Can you make a bootable recovery partition FOR Ubuntu?" I'm soon going to put Ubuntu 11.10 on a separate disk so that I can have a full TB for Windows 7, and a full TB for Ubuntu.

BUT, I want to have it like Windows has, and be able to recover Ubuntu, should something go wrong and still have my current installation intact for later recovery. Is this possible? I've been searching and searching, unable to find out how to do this, but there's GOT to be someone who knows how to do it!

I've contemplated using the contents of a custom installation ISO, but, I don't think you can "burn" an ISO to a partition...if anyone can help me with this, I'd be ever so grateful!

Solution 1

1. There is a wiki page about this and it is old. No progress on it since 2009.
2. On brainstorm people have strong opposing opinions about this. Look at the related topics and you can see it is asked alot but there is also alot of discussion about why we would (not) need it.

Basically the anwser is... no, because there are better ways. Or more like ways Unix/Linux users have been using for years and years.

Besides regular backups of home, data partitions and conf files (mysql conf and apache conf if you have them) if you want a plain and simple method have a look at the dd command. It can clone a complete disc onto another disc and you can use dd again to put it back on that disc. More info and info on dd.

In general: if you have a copy of your home and important files you can always re-install and put those files back.

Just found https://askubuntu.com/questions/99626/what-are-the-benefits-to-use-dd-command on dd. It's a great reference.

You can create a bootable liveCD/USB for recovery instead.

Solution 2

You can use dd but it takes a long time and basically copies your free space as well as your data. I also have found some cases where it simply fails - perhaps due to some bad blocks. I would advise something more high level such as rsync where you have some control over what you are copying, and you are only copying real data (which means a smaller backup), and also you can synchronize this without copying everything (required with a dd backup).

This sort of solution is currently available in the form of the Wubi migration script. While primarily created for Wubi installs, it also works on a normal install and essentially makes a fully bootable backup with a synchronization option. There are some limitations, such as not supporting encrypted /home or more exotic installs, but it does support separate /home, /boot, /usr and / partitions.

If you want a compressed backup that you can selectively restore from, then using tar makes more sense, as described here: Howto: Backup and restore your system!

Comments

[Admin]

:p Sorry for my lack of paragraphs, there :p

[Admin]

seriously? this isn't even close to the same question and there is no answer to this question in the other one. Argh!

[Admin]

I wonder what Dell does on their Linux-supported machines. Anyone got one?