Will Siddall wrote:
Just so everyone knows what I'm doing, here is what I'm doing: $ls -al ~ | tail -n 5 -rw-r--r-- 1 myusername users 222118 2008-11-28 10:23 untitled.JPG -rwxr-xr-x 1 myusername users 172 2008-03-12 12:14 wmamp3 drwxr-xr-x 4 myusername users 4096 2008-10-05 22:41 workspace -rw-r--r-- 1 myusername users 1041452 2008-11-18 21:29 xine-out.wav -rw-r--r-- 1 myusername users 0 2009-07-21 21:18 zero.trf $cp -a --preserve=all ~ /media/bigdrive/backups/ $ls -al /media/bigdrive/backups | tail -n 5 -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 222118 2008-11-28 10:23 untitled.JPG -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 172 2008-03-12 12:14 wmamp3 drwxrwxrwx 4 root root 4096 2008-10-05 22:41 workspace -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 1041452 2008-11-18 21:29 xine-out.wav -rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 2009-07-21 21:18 zero.trf I've been using this stuff enough to know what's in the man pages and how to use google. No matter what though, the output is the same whether I'm running it from within my Arch install or from a live cd like ubuntu.
Maybe you need to run the cp as root in order to be able to set the owners/groups/modes properly on the new files? i.e.:
$ sudo cp -a --preserve=all ~ /media/bigdrive/backups/ HTH, DR
