A fast guide to system rescue using open tools

“Technology is wonderful, until it stops working as expected.
Computers have a nasty habit of developing glitches or just going
belly up altogether at the worst possible times. There’s nothing
that can prevent that, but a couple of open source tools can help
mitigate disaster and maybe even save the day altogether. With
Clonezilla you can create a perfect copy of your system. Using the
System Rescue CD, you’ll have all the tools you need to recover
from many system crashes.

“To thy data be kind

“It might be tempting to rely on system troubleshooting skills
to save the day, but the only guaranteed way to keep your data safe
is to do regular system backups. Never ask “should I be paranoid
about losing my data?” Ask “just how paranoid should I be about
losing my data?”The answer to that question, if you have any files
that can’t be easily replaced—especially things like family
photos or documents that you’ve created—is very paranoid.

“So let’s start with Clonezilla, an open source clone system.
That is to say, it’s a system for creating a clone of your existing
system. Clonezilla is designed to do more than just back up your
data—it’s actually designed to create a fully working copy of
an installed system. Clonezilla comes in two editions: Clonezilla
Live and Clonezilla Server. The server edition is geared towards
massive clone/restore scenarios and it requires a server to receive
the cloned partitions and a system or systems booted off of PXE or
Etherboot.”

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