Thanks - excellent suggestions. I'm definitely comfortable with the Linux command line, having used it since 1998 (and SunOS/Solaris for a while before then). Fernando Botelho wrote:

If you are confortable with Linux, you can use dd for entire drives, and later on, storeBackup for more routine backup operations. People like rsync a lot, but storeBackup is an entirely new level of features, including incremental backups and much more. All available via command line.

Fernando

On 01/24/2019 01:25 PM, Eigeldinger Simon wrote:

...

Hi,

For backing up a complete drive i use Clonezilla. Works well and is accessible.

Clonezilla Live boots off a usb stick or cd. Its basically debian with an automatically starting clonezilla.

https://clonezilla.org/downloads/download.php?branch=testing

Greetings, Simon -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Jason White via Blind-sysadmins Gesendet: Donnerstag, 24. Jänner 2019 15:31 An: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Cc: Jason White Betreff: [Blind-sysadmins] Some backup and UEFI questions

I'm performing background research, and asking questions on mailing lists, in preparation for an attempt to install Linux alongside the existing Windows environment on my Lenovo P51 laptop.

What are the most accessible options for creating a backup of the existing drive and its Windows partitions, before I make changes?

I've installed several distributions of Linux before, but on BIOS-based systems, and without another operating system installed. UEFI and Secure Boot complicate the situation. I've asked on a Linux User's Group list as well, but any suggestions that subscribers here can offer (or good links taht I might any advice that subscribers here can offer, or links to good references taht I may not ahve found, would be welcome.

The laptop also has Intel Management Engine firmware, but it hasn't been configured. It may enable the UEFI menus to be made accessible - but I haven't looked into the details yet. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org

It turned out that Clonezilla was available on the Arch Linux installation medium. It detected the NTFS file systems and took a backup of the system drive to an external hard drive that I had with an XFS file system on it. For those who are not on the Orca mailing list where this was announced, the latest (slightly unofficial) Talking Arch can be found at http://talkingarch.info/ It loads Speakup for speech, and BRLTTY for braille, then leaves you at a root shell prompt. I needed help to turn off Secure Boot in the firmware settings of the machine, but that was the only accessibility issue so far. My next steps will be to try to shrink the main Windows partition so that I can install Linux on the free space. -----Original Message----- From: Jason White via Blind-sysadmins Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2019 7:00 PM To: Fernando.Botelho@F123.org; 'Blind sysadmins list' Cc: Jason White Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Re: Some backup and UEFI questions There's also an interesting list of tools here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/disk_cloning If I use dd, I might not need to decrypt the NTFS partitions, which are protected by BitLocker. However, this would also involve copying the entire drive - including all of the free space (most of the capacity of the 1TB SSD at this point). Writing to a compressed file is an option, of course, which should at least compress the free space, although the entire disk would still need to be read. At least the SSD does have an NVM-Express interface. With the other backup tools, so far as I've determined, I would need to decrypt the partitions for them to access the NTFS file systems. I'm still thinking about it... -----Original Message----- From: Fernando Botelho On Behalf Of Fernando Botelho Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2019 10:35 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Cc: Jason White Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Re: Some backup and UEFI questions If you are confortable with Linux, you can use dd for entire drives, and later on, storeBackup for more routine backup operations. People like rsync a lot, but storeBackup is an entirely new level of features, including incremental backups and much more. All available via command line. Fernando On 01/24/2019 01:25 PM, Eigeldinger Simon wrote:

Hi,

For backing up a complete drive i use Clonezilla. Works well and is accessible.

Clonezilla Live boots off a usb stick or cd. Its basically debian with an automatically starting clonezilla.

https://clonezilla.org/downloads/download.php?branch=testing

Greetings, Simon -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Jason White via Blind-sysadmins Gesendet: Donnerstag, 24. Jänner 2019 15:31 An: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Cc: Jason White Betreff: [Blind-sysadmins] Some backup and UEFI questions

I'm performing background research, and asking questions on mailing lists, in preparation for an attempt to install Linux alongside the existing Windows environment on my Lenovo P51 laptop.

What are the most accessible options for creating a backup of the existing drive and its Windows partitions, before I make changes?

I've installed several distributions of Linux before, but on BIOS-based systems, and without another operating system installed. UEFI and Secure Boot complicate the situation. I've asked on a Linux User's Group list as well, but any suggestions that subscribers here can offer (or good links taht I might any advice that subscribers here can offer, or links to good references taht I may not ahve found, would be welcome.

The laptop also has Intel Management Engine firmware, but it hasn't been configured. It may enable the UEFI menus to be made accessible - but I haven't looked into the details yet. _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list -- blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org To unsubscribe send an email to blind-sysadmins-leave@lists.hodgsonfamily.org