Could you please advise the best way to proceed with my 'Back UP' requirements. After purchasing Linspire I intend to download additional programs via their CNR service. I would like to keep a continuous Backup HD (in a caddy) containing the OS and the latest programs downloaded. Did have a trial of Linspire, using a dual boot. Failed to back up trying Norton Ghost and Acronis, ran into the problem of partition sizes being changed and having to reinstall the Linspire MBR.Have decided to have only a single OS in future. Did email Acronis their advice was wrong. Stating 'It MAY be necessary to reinstall MBR if partition sizes change' Either way, automatic or manual, sizes are changed,there is no choice. Help appreciated.

http://forum.linspire.com/

Have already posted there(twice). There was no,and reading other posts a solution offered.Having to reinstall the MBR each time is not a proposition. Wanted to try and keep it simply as I am doing now with Windows 'insert Ghost floppy' and its done.Was hoping someone on Computing Net would have come up with a 'simple'suggestion.Thanks for your reply.

You could try BootIt NG from Terabyte Unlimited. It is shareware software, and has a partition image utility, a boot manager, and a partition manager. Also (and not as simple), DD can create a binary image of any HDD, Partition, CD, or DVD. It uses an input file and an output file. The input file can be any file or device on the system. The output file is the device or file location of your choice. For example, you could copy the contents of a floppy disk to a file with "dd if=/dev/fd0 of=~/floppy1.img". dd will read from the disk in the floppy drive (/dev/fd0), and write to the file named floppy1.img on your home directory (~/floppy1.img). From within a Linux terminal window run info dd or man dd for further information. HTH, Ernie Registered Linux User 247790 ICQ 41060744

If you want a simple floppy solution, try ghost for linux (or ghost for unix) http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/ http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/ They are really just scripts which simplify the use of commands like dd, tar, gzip and ftp. Personally I use rsync/ssh over a network for most of my backups but that is more for data than partitions and MBRs etc. I generally keep a copy of the MBR and partition table on a bootable floppy for each machine. This can be done with: # dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1 If the MBR ever gets wiped or overwritten (eg by installing windoze...thanx bill!) you can simply boot from the floppy and copy it back with: # dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

Many thanks for information given.