HOWTO: Creating an Image/Partition Backup Set

UBQ ID Number: UBQ000054

Last Modified: 2000-06-08 at 10:43:58

SUMMARY:

How to create an Image or Image Partition backup set, and information regarding them.

DETAILS:

To perform an Image backup, you must have the Image agent enabled/licensed.

The first step is to define the disk or disks which are to be included in the image set. Start UltraBac and click on the option path, "Backup"/ "New" / "Backup Using UltraBac Agent"/"Next"/"Image Backup"/"Next".

Figure 1: Starting new backup set creation

Figure 2: Select Agent Backup

Figure 3: Select Image Backup

This will list all of the physical disk drives on the system.

Figure 4: Select Disks for Image Backup

Choose the physical disk drives to be included by clicking on the box icon alongside each drive. Click on "Next" to display the "Create New Set" screen.

Figure 5: Create Image Set

Enter a unique Set Description. The File Selection Logic is ignored when creating an image set. See the "Creating Backup Sets" chapter for explanations pertaining to the other options on this screen. Select "Load Set" to display the Set Editor or "Save Set" to display the "Save Set" dialog box.

To do a Partition Level Image, click on Load Set, and select the Disk on the left column, so the partitions appear in the right column (above). Select (put checkmarks) on the partitions that you wish to back up. A partition level backup should not be used to do a Disaster Recovery on a failed system hard drive; since the bootsector information and certain partition information isn't backed up when performing a partition level image backup.

A partition level image backup can be restored with the DR disks. The partition-level image backup only backs up the data within that partition (sector-by-sector). Any existing boot-sector or partition table information on the disk is not backed up. If you have a partition of your system root and wish to restore it to a new disk, you must first define the partition to a size at least as large as it was previously (any excess is lost) and before you can boot off of that disk, you must first create/modify the bootsector. Modification of the boot sector can be done with utilities like diskedit (DOS). The easier way, (but it takes longer), is to install a temp version of NT.

In order to do a Disaster Recovery on a completely failed hard drive using the Partition Level Image, you would need to first create the partitions, and then modify the bootsector. The problem this presents is often the partitions are larger than 2048MB. Fdisk can be used to create partitions of up to 2048MB, but not larger. In this case, you could either use a 3rd party program like aefdisk or install a temporary vesion of NT in order to create the partitions to the size needed. The other method would be to only do Disk Level Image and not use Partition Level Image at all. For more information, see UBQ000043 – Partition Level Image Backup

To do a full Disk Image, click Save Set without loading, or load the set and select the disk number in the right column (above)

Figure 6: Create Set Screen

Within the Set Editor, select "Create Set" to create the set.

The "Save Set" dialog box:

Figure 7: Save Image Set

Within the "Save Set" screen, enter a file name (if not saving locally select a computer name) and choose "Save".

WARNING: Be advised - a set saved to a different computer will no longer reference the computer where the set was created, but instead - will reference the computer where the set resides. In other words, the set references the "local drives" at time of backup not the "local drives" at time of set creation.

MORE INFORMATION:

See UBQ: UBQ000024 – What is an Image Backup?

See UBQ: UBQ000027 – Restoring Individual Files from an Image Backup

See UBQ: UBQ000028 – PCMCIA SCSI Controllers and Disaster Recovery

See UBQ: UBQ000043 – Standard Partition Level Image Backup

See UBQ: UBQ000051 – Defining an Image Storage Device

See UBQ: UBQ000052 – Defining a Partition Storage Device

See UBQ: UBQ000057 – Creating SADR (Stand Alone Disaster Recovery) Floppies - Intel & Alpha

See UBQ: UBQ000058 – Stand Alone Image Backup/Restore Using Floppies – Intel & Alpha

See UBQ: UBQ000059 – Integrated GUI Image Recovery (Non-Boot Disk)

See UBQ: UBQ000060 – Static Mirror Image Recovery

See UBQ: UBQ000061 – Stand Alone Backup & Disaster Recovery Utility