I strongly suggest you do not depend on windows partition to backup your Linux files. If windows crashed it's very likely that the partition is messed up and you will lose everything if you handle it with another OS. You don't need to backup entire Linux. What I normaly do is tar /etc /root, /home, and /usr/local to a spare drive or partition. /var is backed up only for my web server. Every once in a while I put tar files on tape. I created a script that creates backup file of my important home directories. Files that can be downloaded from the Internet or CD and temporarily kept in my home are never backed up. Since the backup is greater than one CD lately, I split the directories so that it fits on two CDs. My whole home is probably over 4GB right now. The important thing is to organize your home space into logical subdirectories for easy find and backups. No need to backup my tmp, var, rpm, tar, and such subdirectories of files I can find on the net. I do have a file that has the names of all the files in my home. The easiest way to do that is with command tree ~ > home.tree which keeps all the names. It's a simple ASCII tree of file names. That goes into my backup for future reference if needed. If you are serious about computer use keep one backup somewhere else, with your friends, car, etc. In case you don't trust others or have privacy concerns, use encryption before you create a backup. to create identical directory structure on another partition I use (cd /sourcedir; tar cfp - somesubdir) | (cd /destdir; tar xfp -) One last thing, try to convert to ext3 partition format. It's safer that way. I hope it helps. -- Rafael On Sun, Aug 11, 2002 at 09:28:27AM -0500, John J. Boyer wrote: > Hello, I am running a dual-boot machine. Linux and Windows are on separate > drives. My Windows committed suicide, so I'm not worrying about it until I > get a Windows job. However, the Windows drive has lots of room. I would > like to back up my entire Linux system on the Windows drive without having > to change it from VFAT to EXT2. It still has some good data on it. I would > like to be able to put the backup into a directory, with the proper > subdirectories and no compression, so I can refer to it easily. Further > down the road, I would like to burn backup cd's for my Linux system. > however, there is probably more data than will fit on one CD, even if it > is compressed. Hw can I do this? > Thanks. > John >