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Thread: HALP. Seriously. I ISO'd a backup of my haywired ubuntu USB, now how do I restore it?

  1. #11
    lmn. is offline Just Give Me the Beans!
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    Re: HALP. Seriously. I ISO'd a backup of my haywired ubuntu USB, now how do I restore

    ok so I didn't read it properly, I told myself I did though, and that;s all that counts.
    also it's an L ol

  2. #12
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    Re: HALP. Seriously. I ISO'd a backup of my haywired ubuntu USB, now how do I restore

    Quote Originally Posted by Baniita View Post
    Ehhhh? D8" /Bashes head. I'm sorrrryyy. But I don't even know what that meaaans. ; v;

    Stupid question, how do I work it without booting the USB? 8D"
    The point was to get usable files after ubuntu boots it so that you can restart AGAIN then boot it.

    You could also try the conv and output flags.
    Life is an extraordinarily long concatenation of luck and coincidence.

  3. #13
    Join Date
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    Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

    Re: HALP. Seriously. I ISO'd a backup of my haywired ubuntu USB, now how do I restore

    It would be nice to know what you used to back it up with? Remastersys? What?

  4. #14
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    Re: HALP. Seriously. I ISO'd a backup of my haywired ubuntu USB, now how do I restore

    Hi Banita,

    First you should check that the iso is ok, cause if it isn't we can't help you. I'm not sure where you stored the .iso. Is it on an external HDD? The method I'm going to outline uses the command line, not the GUI. You need to know or learn a little bit about paths and directory structure to complete it using this method.

    Let me assume your iso file is stored on /dev/sda1, and /dev/sda1 is mounted on /media/sda1. So in this example, the filename of your iso would be /media/sda1/USB_backup.iso. Replace this with the correct path to your iso in the examples below.

    To check the status of the iso, you need to mount it somewhere then go poke around in the mounted system to make sure all the files you expect to be in the iso, really are in the iso:
    Code:
    cd              # Change to your home directory
    mkdir tempMount # Make a temp directory for mounting the iso
    sudo mount -o loop /media/sda1/USB_backup.iso tempMount # mount your iso file at the temp directory.
    cd tempMount
    ls -la          # Make sure the files in your iso are ok
    You'll need to enter your password at any line with sudo, which executes the command with root priviledges. At this point you should poke around in tempMount to make sure your files are all right. If this step doesn't work, the rest of the stuff below won't work either. After you've confirmed that your files are there, unmount it again:
    Code:
    cd
    sudo umount tempMount
    To restore the iso, you need to an empty USB of the same size as the one that you backed up. This USB will be overwritten by the backed-up ISO. When you insert it, Ubuntu will likely auto-mount it. Unmount it from the file-manager window by clicking on the eject icon. Now you need to know the name ubuntu assigns to your USB. Use the fdisk command:
    Code:
    sudo fdisk -l
    This will give you an overview of all storage devices that ubuntu can find on your system. You need to locate the new USB drive from among these. Don't get this part wrong, because the next step is going to overwrite the storage device you choose. You should also check that the size of your iso file, is the same as the size of the USB device you are trying to restore it to. I'll assume your device is /dev/sdx which is most likely not a real device on your system, but you should replace it with the name of the device that you found with the fdisk command above. If should be something like /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc

    Now comes the dangerous part: copying the iso back onto your destination device. You need to be careful you get the destination correct, because it is all too easy to wipe off your internal drive by typing /dev/sda instead of /dev/sdb for example and lose all your data. Be very careful here, you have been warned.
    Code:
    sudo dd if=/media/sda1/USB_backup.iso of=/dev/sdx
    This command copies, byte-for-byte, the contents of USB_backup.iso to the device that ubuntu identifies as /dev/sdx, that you found above using the fdisk. This command will take a long time to complete, could be an hour or more depending on your transfer rates and size of the device you're restoring. I can't overemphasize how careful you need to be before pressing enter to this command. When I do this for big restorations, I sometimes like to check to make sure that it is restoring appropriately and get an update of the progress. The below commands are not necessary, but can be reassuring to know things are proceeding. You can skip it if you don't feel comfortable.

    The dd command can receive a signal that will cause it to dump it's progress status, if you give it the appropriate signal. To give the signal you use the kill command, but the kill command needs to know the process id (PID) to send the signal to. Leave the dd command running in one terminal window, and open a second window and type:
    Code:
    pgrep -lf dd
    pgrep will find and report the PID's for processes with dd in the name. It is likely that there will be more than 1 such process, you need to locate the process and get the ID for the dd command you executed above, which should be an integer greater than zero. Once you have this number you send a signal to dd that will ask it to tell you its progress status with the kill command:
    Code:
    kill -USR1 PID
    where PID is the ID you found above with pgrep command. Now go back to the window where dd is still running. You'll see some information appeared on the screen that will tell you how much it has copied, and how fast it is going. You can get an estimate of how long it's going to take.

    When the dd command is finished, you should have the contents of the backup.iso restored onto the USB device. If your USB was bootable before, you should shut down and be able to reboot your computer from your restored device.

  5. #15
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    Re: HALP. Seriously. I ISO'd a backup of my haywired ubuntu USB, now how do I restore

    @ch'yeah!! - YOU, SIR--ARE INCOMPREHENSIBLY AMAZINGREAT.
    Fffff, seriously. Finally, at least a step forward. I really thought it'd really work completely this time, but unfortunately it didn't. Argh. I highly doubt that it didn't work because of your instructions. A lot of USBs have stop working for me--usually when I don't shut down cleanly.
    Thank you for being so thorough~ I appreciate people who don't half-*** things. :'D

    The next issue is that when the USB boots (I checked the .iso, it seemed fine)... It.. Well... It doesn't boot. It's worked fine before, but my ubuntu USBs usually crash on me like this. /Sigh.
    It just gives me this "no operating system found" or "not bootable" carp-in-a-pond.
    I assure you people that this USB worked fine with ubuntu before.
    I really, really cannot identify the problem. Disk utility insists it's bootable in the partition flags (relevant? I haven't the slightest), of universal disk format... etcetc.
    But for some reason it's mounted in /cdrom in root. Whaaaat. My other live USBs did not even go there. Nautilus doesn't mount it automatically, which I could probably get around if I needed to... Anyway, I can't unmount/safelyshutdown no matter what since it gives me this "busy" message. Or this:
    "Device is mounted and no online capability in fsck tool for file system"
    Wat. I no compretend.

    Can anybody provide me with further assistance? Perhaps something on it is broken, and I need to manually repair it or something. Before I go hysterical (shut it ye judgementals--I'm not being melo, I have every right to go mad--I've been at this way too long--I have a Pringles CAN on my shoulder right now... Okay, maybe that last line was melo. More lame than melo, but...).

  6. #16
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    Re: HALP. Seriously. I ISO'd a backup of my haywired ubuntu USB, now how do I restore

    Quote Originally Posted by Baniita View Post
    I appreciate people who don't half-*** things. :'D
    Good, cause I'm never helping you again.

    That was completely unnecessary..........
    Life is an extraordinarily long concatenation of luck and coincidence.

  7. #17
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    Re: HALP. Seriously. I ISO'd a backup of my haywired ubuntu USB, now how do I restore

    @wind: ...Er.. XD" Sorry. Seriously.
    [edit--...OWAIT. What? What was unnecessary? At first I thought you meant the way I dealt with the files--hurr. That line totally wasn't referring to you, by the way. Chah there practically wrote a walkthrough, so I just meant it in general. I'm surrounded by apathetic tards most of the time, is why.]

    The point was to get usable files after ubuntu boots it so that you can restart AGAIN then boot it.
    You could also try the conv and output flags.
    I just... Have no clue what that means. I restarted several times... No matter what, I couldn't boot it. I wasn't sure what you meant and just assumed that I shouldn't bother you any more, since you already sounded agitated. . v." Yes yes, call me an idiot all you like. Conv/output flags... The only thing I can associate that with are partition flags. And I'm pretty sure that's not it.

    Actually, it is silly how long it took me to figure out just how to put the files on the USB without it giving me permission/'unique file' shet. /Shakes head.
    Last edited by Baniita; May 31st, 2011 at 08:11 AM. Reason: Whup.

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