Validation tests I hope to run or see run
A list of tests (with their status) appears below. I lack the
disk space to easily perform all the tests, as others verify their
functionality, email me and I will update this page. My system is
currently a dual booting AMD-K6 with the VIA chipset, 64 MB PC100 ram,
Red Hat 5.2 Linux, and a Philips 3610 CD-Rewriter. I have the latest
versions of cdrecord, but any reasonable version should work.
- DD archive and restore of a linux drive
- I used dd with a
mounted linux disk, archived the entire partition across a network
using rsh, dd, gzip and backburner to a CD-Recordable disc, overwrote
the entire Linux partition or disk with zeros, and restored it via the
backburner suggested script. The test worked perfectly. The
unused part of the disk must have contained zeros, as my compression
rate was phenomenal (1.6 gig of data backed up to less then 1
CD-Recordable disk). I was able to use the Red Hat recovery disk, and
simply gunzip and dd the image right back onto the original drive.
Lilo came back intact, the partitions came back intact, and aside from
an fdisk (necessary since the original image was made from a mounted
disk), the resotred image worked perfectly. Screenshots to come
soon.
- Tar archive and restore of a mounted ext2fs (linux) partition
across a network
- Use tar across a network to backup a Linux
filesystem. Reformat the drive, reboot the system with the RedHat 5.2
(or similar) recovery disk, build up a sacrificial installation (that
includes perl and backburner), and use the backburner extract tool to
restore the previously archived system. Test not yet performed.
Did the device files come back correctly? Did the the disk need to be
fsckd? What about the boot sector? Partition table? What about the
/var files? Include screenshots of each step.
- Tar archive and restore of a Windows partition
- Use tar with
a mounted MSDOS fat32 system, archive the entire hierarchy using tar
and backburner to a CD-Rewritable disc, reformat the DOS partition,
and restore it via backburner. Test not performed. Did the
registry come back correctly? Did the the disk need to be scandisked?
Any problems with the partition table? Did it keep the long file
names? Please include screenshots of each step. I suspect this
will fail, as I do not believe the long file names will survive. This
problem should go away as FAT32 and long file name support are built
into the msdos mountable file system tools.
- DD archive and restore of a Windows partition
- Use dd with an
umounted MSDOS fat32 partition or disk, archive the entire partition
using dd and backburner to a CD-Rewritable disc, overwrite the entire
DOS partition or disk with zeros, and restore it via backburner.
Test not yet performed (actually I did the backup, and it seemed to
work fine. As of yet, I am too chicken to try to restore it while my
wife and I both need the windows system for work. Somebody with lots
of extra disk space should make an expendable windows installation and
give this a test). Questions to be answered: Did the registry come
back correctly? Did the the disk need to be scandisked? What about
the boot sector? Partition table? Long file names? Include
screenshots of each step.
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