n00b question about backup and restore

[0ldfart]

I tried TCL for the first time today and was really impressed with it. Im having trouble working out the backup and restore function though.

I am booting from cd, and want to backup/restore to usb

I set mounted sdb1 and set it as backup, and the box is ticked to back up on shutdown.

Theres a mydata file on the usb - so I guess that means it worked.

However, when I reboot, there's no sign that I backed up. My installed apps are gone and everything is back to defaults.

I tried mounting sdb1 and selecting restore, but nothing happens.

After installing apps and rebooting several times I gave up and figured it was time to seek some help

What I want to do:

Boot from cd, and have TCL restore my personal files and installed apps from my USB drive. It would be great if its possible to do this automatically, if not, I dont mind doing whatever is required when it starts to get things back to how I left them.

Is it possible to do this?

[roberts]

Since you are booting from a cd at the very first boot prompt enter
tinycore tce=sda1 waitusb=5
Doing this a tce folder will be setup on your pendrive to store downloaded applications.

You only need to do the tce=sda1 one time.
However, since you are booting from a cd and wanting to access the pendrive for your backup and applications you will always need to type tinycore waitusb=5

5 is the number of seconds to wait for the pendrive, you may need to use more or less.

[0ldfart]

Since you are booting from a cd at the very first boot prompt enter
tinycore tce=sda1 waitusb=5
Doing this a tce folder will be setup on your pendrive to store downloaded applications.

You only need to do the tce=sda1 one time.
However, since you are booting from a cd and wanting to access the pendrive for your backup and applications you will always need to type tinycore waitusb=5

5 is the number of seconds to wait for the pendrive, you may need to use more or less.

Oh great. thanks very much for your help

err... this is probably a really stupid question, but, how come sda1? (in TCL sdb1 is the pen drive)

[roberts]

Your right sdb1 is your pendrive. I used the generic sda1. Use whatever is approriate for your system.

[JoXo009]

Since you are booting from a cd at the very first boot prompt enter
tinycore tce=sda1 waitusb=5
Doing this a tce folder will be setup on your pendrive to store downloaded applications.

You only need to do the tce=sda1 one time.
However, since you are booting from a cd and wanting to access the pendrive for your backup and applications you will always need to type tinycore waitusb=5

5 is the number of seconds to wait for the pendrive, you may need to use more or less.

Just an idea:

Woudn't it possible to test from within the iso, if it is running from CD/USB this time and if so to do a waitusb=5 by default - which could be overwritten in the rare cases it isn't needed?

The same to 'first time tce=sda1/sdb1' - couldn't it be provided by default if there is no tce dir on harddrive but an usb present?

Maybe such default could make live easier for newcomers, as especially that 'handwritten bootcode needed' but 'not needed (second time)' feature often may lead to misunderstandings. (Where/when/how/what to bootcode isn't intuitive at all without explaining screenshots.)

It's an idea only. Don't know if it is possible, as I don't use CD or usb myself.

[curaga]

Unfortunately not possible. It would need to be within the bootloader, to be able to choose what bootcodes to add. I don't think any of the bootloaders has that kind of scripting, nor recognition whether they run from CD or usb. Heck, even usb support at all isn't in many of them.

[bmarkus]

Do it differently. Does it harm to use waitusb=5 always? Is there any side effect with CD?

[curaga]

Slower boot for everyone.

[bmarkus]

Slower boot for everyone.

Just 5 sec. But OK

On the other hand, this is so easy to edit the boot cfg file and add waitusb=5 or any other parameter, like noicons using LXDE. This is what I'm doing with USB.

[thane]

Yup, I do the same thing on CD (no USB boot and flaky hard drive). Works fine.