[SLL] backup to Windows, restore on Linux

[Bill Campbell]

On Sat, Jun 14, 2008, Adam Monsen wrote:
>Anyone know how to make a backup on Windows that can be restored on
>Linux? I'm trying to help my cousin save his data from his Windows XP
>box, install Ubuntu, and restore the data.
>
>My backup media is 700MB CD-ROMs, there is about 5GB of data that
>needs to be moved over.
>
>The Windows box currently has something called Sonic that can do the
>backup to CD, but I'm guessing it will be in a proprietary format.
>
>I might try using a direct ethernet connection to another computer and
>sending the data over, or installing Cygwin and using that to backup
>to CD somehow on windows. Maybe make a big .tar archive, split it
>using "split", then burn those to separate CDs?

The safest way would be to install a new hard drive, install Linux on that,
then mount the old Windows data read-only on Linux to copy it over.  That
way you could always fall back to the original system in a pinch.

I'm in the process of doing something similar with my old Titanium
Powerbook, having installed a new HD in the system, installed Leopard, and
have the old drive in an external USB chassis migrating everything to the
new HD.  This way, if things don't work out, I can always go back to the
original fairly easily.

I would probably use an external hard drive, partitioned and formatted for
Linux, boot the Windows machine with a Knoppix live CD, mount the Windows
drive(s), and copy the data to the external hard drive.  This is easy,
relatively inexpensive, and you have the external HD available for backups
once you are done.  Using a Linux live-CD eliminates the necessity of doing
anything with Windows software.

As others have suggested, you could also use a USB stick, but that's going
to be considerably slower than a hard drive, and probably not as useful
when you're done.

Bill
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