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From: Randy Kirchhof <rkk@psa.pencom.com>
Message-Id: <199606191347.IAA17521@psa.pencom.com>
Subject: How to do partition map backups?
To: questions@freebsd.org
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 08:47:18 -0500 (CDT)
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Hi Folks -

I've just discovered that a renegade 1542b has completely roached my
master partition and label info, necessitating a reinstall. (No, I did
not check to see if my fixit floppy was usable when created, thank you.
And no, I did not have off line copies of my DOS aspi and cdrom drivers,
thank you. This is one of those "no excuse, right in your face" bits of
stupidity. :-)

I am hoping that some of you may have the incantation to use w/ dd to
properly backup an image of the master partition/labeling and boot
block of a hard disk. I recall seeing this in many forums, but do not
recall the size to back up. Once I reinstall, I do not intend for this
to happen again.

Also, I do not know where the freebsd-specific label info is kept. Is
it within the partition slice or at the front of the disk? How big is
the freebsd label info?

To clarify, for example, if the partition is in the first 512 bytes of
the hard drive, you need something like 'dd if=/dev/rsd0c bs=512
count=1 of=<backup_file>' or similar. To restore, you go the other
direction. From the boot floppy that you created for the purpose and
placed the image upon, of course...

(re)Live and (re)Learn.

Thanks for your help,

r

-- 
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, 
you're still a rat. -- Lily Tomlin
======================================================        _
Randy Kirchhof, Pencom Systems Administration Services     _.| |_
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