Problem Creating Disk Images

[GhX6GZMB]

A tip when using Timeshift:
/root and /home are by default excluded from the backup image. It is a good idea to include them during backup. You can always exclude them again when doing a restore, but then you have the option.

[rbmorse]

I like Timeshift and have found it to be useful for it's stated purpose (recovery from a user induced oops! or a failed/undesired upgrade), but I don't think it's a very good backup tool.

If you're going to use Timeshift for backup purposes, I strongly recommend you perform a a test session and actually use it to first backup the system, then restore it to a blank/new storage device. Backup your user data separately as a hedge against the test failing or producing undesired results as you may need it.

At a minimum walk yourself through the steps you would have to take if you did it for real.

In either case, you might be surprised to find what Timeshift does and what it doesn't, and recovering from a data disaster is not the time you want to be surprised.

[GhX6GZMB]

What rbmorse said.
As your installation is quite new with probably little content, I encourage you to make a Timeshift backup to a USB stick and purposely smash your HDD (or SSD, whatever) and then do a restore. Only this will ensure that you can actually do a crash recovery in the future. Remember to include /root and /home.

In a future reality, you'll probably never experience a crash, more likely you'll want to roll back unwanted installations or own unsuccessful system modifications. Ask me how I know...
But this approach will emulate a worst case scenario.

Smash command: sudo rm -r /* (unmount all other drives first)

Then run your live DVD/USB, install Timeshift and do the restore. If this works (and I fully expect it to), you can sleep well at night.

PS: Important: your USB backup storage must be formatted as ext4, otherwise it will not work.