Debian User Forums

Hi guys!
I was wondering on what method to use to backup a system from a USB drive...?
I have seen you can do that with the "Disks" utility but that backs up individual partitions and not the whole usb...
Any suggestions?

bookie32

I do not understand your question.
Do you want to restore system previously backed up to USB?

I use the 'dd' command. See I use it to write the drive I want to backup to a USB drive, and I use the same command,different syntax to write the back up from the usb device to the HD,
again 'man dd' for details. But then , I may not be understanding the question myself. But I am also very ignorant, and do not have a clue as to what "Disks" utility is ? dd is sometimes called disk destroyer, but I consider it a disk utility, ....guess I better just shut up now.

The method using 'rsync', that Head_on_a_Stick posts a link to is also a excellent method, I have used that my self as well.
If you do a search you will see there are many ways to: Using Debian what method to use to backup a system from a USB drive
Some of the results might not apply,but really , you need to try the various methods, and then decide which one you prefer.
Since you ask specifically about "disks utility ",and I am not sure on that having never heard of it, let's see what comes up :How to back up the entire USB drive using Disks utility on Debian
At a glance I still do not see anything mentioning "disks ustility", but you might consider reading some of them your self, one that probably is realiable: https://wiki.debian.org/BackupAndRecovery
This mentions many of the various methods, and goes into details on them.
Any way, there you go, hope you learn something from this, and have a good day

i use rsync with a gui

I made my own small script that creates snapshots with rsync, I found best read how to do something like that here

http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

I didn't do anything like automount or cron, just once I plug it in, run a script and it is one in 1 min.