Storage choices

You can back up to a CD by using a CD burner on the Neutrino system or by creating an ISO image and copying it to a system with a CD burner that can burn ISO images.

You can use cdrecord to burn CDs on a Neutrino system. To get this software, go to the Third-party software section of the Download area on our website, http://www.qnx.com/.

In either case, you have to create an ISO image of the data that you want to burn to a CD. You can do this with mkisofs, a utility that's included with cdrecord.

Before you can create an ISO image, you need to arrange the files into the directory structure that you want to have on the CD. Then use mkisofs, like this:

mkisofs -l -f -r -joliet -quiet -V"My Label" -o my_iso_image.iso

This command creates an ISO image named my_iso_image.iso with the label, My Label, using the Joliet file format, allowing full 31-character filenames (-l), following all symbolic links when generating the filesystem (-f), and generating SUSP and RR records using the Rock Ridge protocol (-r).

Once you've created the ISO image, you can send the image to a system that can burn an ISO image or you can burn it using cdrecord:

cdrecord -v speed=2 dev=/dev/cd0 my_iso_image.iso

This command burns a CD at dual speed (2), using the CD burner called cd0, from the ISO image called my_iso_image.iso. For more information, see the documentation for cdrecord.

Note: For a list of supported CD drives, see the README file that comes with the cdrecord source code.

You can also make the CD bootable, using cdrecord and its associated utilities, as follows:

Create a bootable floppy that calls the needed scripts and includes the needed binaries in the image.
Make an image of the floppy, using the dd utility. For example:
```
dd if=/dev/fd0 of=/floppy.img
    
```
Create a directory with all the needed binaries, in the layout that you want in your CD-ROM ISO image. For example:
```
mkdir iso_image
cp -Rc /bin iso_image/bin
cp -Rc /etc iso_image/etc
....
    
```
Make sure that the isocatalog is in /usr/share/cdburning on the system.
Create the ISO image using mkisofs, making sure to specify the catalog with the -c option. For example:
```
mkisofs -l -f -r -joliet -quiet -V"My Label" -b floppy.img \
-c /usr/share/cdburning/isocatalog -o my_iso_image.iso
    
```
Burn the ISO image to a CD.

Other forms of removable media are also useful for backing up data. Neutrino supports LS-120, magnetic optical (MO drives), internal ZIP drives, and USB mass-storage devices. Each has its own benefits and weaknesses; it's up to you to determine which form of media is best for backing up your data. For instructions on how to install this hardware, see the Connecting Hardware chapter in this guide.

You can make identical images of hard drives under Neutrino, using simple utilities. This is called making a raw copy of the drive.

Note: The instructions here are for copying from one hard disk to another of identical properties (size, make model). To make a copy of a drive that differs in size and make, contact technical support for the QNX_Drive_Copy utility.

If you have an identical hard drive (manufacturer, size, model number), you can simply attach the drive to the system. Make sure you know which position the drive is set up as (e.g., EIDE Primary Slave).

Once you've attached the drive, boot the Neutrino system. The system should automatically detect the hard drive and create an entry in the /dev directory for it. The new entry should appear as /dev/hd1 if there are only two drives in the system. If there are more than two, then the drive could be hd1, hd2, and so on. In this case, use the fdisk to identify which drive is which. The new drive shouldn't have any partitions set up on it and should be blank.

CAUTION:

Be absolutely positive about the drives before continuing, because if you don't identify the drives correctly, you could copy the contents of the blank hard drive onto your original drive, and you'll lose all your data. There's no way to recover from this.

Once you've identified the drives, type:

cp -V /dev/hd0 /dev/hd1

where hd0 is the original hard disk, and hd1 is the new drive that you're copying to.

This command copies everything from the first drive, including partition tables, boot loaders, and so on, onto the second drive. To test that the copy was successful, remove the original drive and put the backup drive in its place, then boot the system from the backup drive. The system should boot into Neutrino and look the same as your original drive. Keep the backup in a safe location.

Some Neutrino users have used ghost images for backups, but we don't recommend them. Partition information might not be restored properly, causing filesystems to not boot correctly. If you run fdisk again on the drive, the drive reports incorrect information, and fdisk writes incorrect data to the drive.