USBoot Backup? about pi-safe HOT 30 CLOSED

Yes it should. It actually creates an image file of any disk-type media.

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Any idea, formatted storage to ext4, mounted storage to link in the directory folder?

Maybe I'm doing it all wrong I would appreciate any advice, thankyou

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Thanks for the screen shots. That helped a lot.
I can't see what media you picked to backup. Is it sda? Looks like sda has 110g on it.
It looks like you are backing up to sdb which has 444g of space.
Backing up sda to sdb should work, but it is best to not backup your root drive. See below.
If you are trying to backup sdb to sdb it won't work.

1. It is better to boot from a different device than you are backing up. For instance, you could put a minimal linux on what is now sdb, boot to it, install pisafe on it, stick what is now sda in a usb port and backup new-sdb to a folder on new-sda.

2. As an option, you can speed up the backup by shrinking what is not sda2. you are only using 3% of it. you can probably use gparted to shrink it. THIS IS NOT REQUIRED, JUST AN OPTION.

3. Also, leaving the filename ending in zip will compress the image, usually to about half.

let me know if this info helped.

-- peace

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It's sdb 500gb external SSD

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OK, to backup a 500gb external SSD (sdb) you need another storage device slightly bigger than 500gb, like a 1TB sdc. Then backup sdb to sdc. Again, if you shrink the ext4 partition on sdb first, it will not need as much space or time.

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Ok, this is my setup I have Debian on 128gb usb drive (sda1,2), I want to image it to the 500gb external SSD (sdb)

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that will work. it is not ideal to backup a root drive, but here is how:
Go into settings, options and turn OFF "hide_root_device".
Then back at the main menu, backup, sda, give it a filename (recommend leaving the .zip at the end)

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that will work. it is not ideal to backup a root drive, but here is how:
Go into settings, options and turn OFF "hide_root_device".
Then back at the main menu, backup, sda, give it a filename (recommend leaving the .zip at the end)

Why is it not ideal?

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Because the operating system may (or probably will) change some files while the backup is being made. Then the image file is not identical to the original.
Go ahead with it for now to see it at least starts. Then consider the process in #1 above.
It is recommended that you backup a non-booted device (sdb) to your booted device (sda).

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Because the operating system may (or probably will) change some files while the backup is being made. Then the image file is not identical to the original.
Go ahead with it for now to see it at least starts. Then consider the process in #1 above.
It is recommended that you backup a non-booted device (sdb) to your booted device (sda).

I just wanted to test if it was possible

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Great. It should work. let me know how it goes.

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Great. It should work. let me know how it goes.

It's not ideal, but I don't have spare storage drives, unless I just use a microsd card

I don't really trust the reliability of microsd cards to save images to...it would do the job though.

It's going to take a while to read the 119GB drive...

I just want to know the saving to the external drive works and I set that up properly as I'm no linux expert and use guides like most people

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As I mentioned above, if you use gparted to shrink the ext4 partition on sda, it can go MUCH faster because it will skip all the "free space" you free up. Maybe resize it from 119GB to 20 or 30GB. You can always resize it larger later.

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At the shrink part it had an error, but closed out way too fast for me to screencap it!

I don't think I quite trust that image it created...like you recommended I should boot up another install with pi-safe etc

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open the log file. Tools / Log

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open the log file. Tools / Log

It didn't capture the error for some strange reason

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If you don't care what is on your external 500gb drive, install reapberrypiOS (or other linux) on it, boot to it, install pisafe on it, plug your 119gb in as an sdb and backup sdb. Consider taking the defaults of Downloads folder and .zip extension. Then experiment later.

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If you don't care what is on your external 500gb drive, install reapberrypiOS (or other linux) on it, boot to it, install pisafe on it, plug your 119gb in as an sdb and backup sdb. Consider taking the defaults of Downloads folder and .zip extension. Then experiment later.

Managed to get that, 500gb was just to store backup images

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hmm. Use raspberry pi imager from their website to flash the OS to the 500gb drive.

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Any luck with creating an image of your 119gb usb stick?

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Well, I have flashed a usb image I had to the 500GB and expanded to the full size of the drive, not installed pi-safe on it yet...I can't see it not working with the SSD being the active boot drive now

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Any luck with creating an image of your 119gb usb stick?

On default setting, all I did was install pi-safe

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It looks like you are still booting to the 119gb. You should boot to the 500gb. then there will be room to backup the 119 to the 500.

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It looks like you are still booting to the 119gb. You should boot to the 500gb. then there will be room to backup the 119 to the 500.

No I'm booted on the 500gb one now with fresh install of pi-safe

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I just have a moment for now. Will check in later.
Can you remove the 119, boot to the 500, set pisafe to factory defaults, plug the 119 in, select backup...

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I just have a moment for now. Will check in later.
Can you remove the 119, boot to the 500, set pisafe to factory defaults, plug the 119 in, select backup...

That's what I did...

Think I know why.....500GB is not expanded fully it is just to 128GB, so I need to fix that, will have to reinstall

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Or use gparted to expand it.

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Or use gparted to expand it.

Wish it was that simple, I don't have a desktop environment installed and also I use zramswap...just going to be easier with a fresh pi os install on 500gb just used for image backups...guides I found I had to delete swap and root part, recreate with start and end etc, just a faff really

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Or use gparted to expand it.

Update: 100% worked

Just ended up flashing new pi os, install pi-safe and will just use, 500GB as an image backup system drive.

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Terrific!! Glad it worked.
You can use the pisafe or raspi-imager to restore the image to a media.
If all went well, you can restore it to any media (sd, usb stick, usb ssd...)
You can choose .xz and even kick the compression level to make a smaller archive... but it will take more time.
You can name the image file to reflect what is in it. Best to NOT rename the file after it has been made.

• peace

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