Making a Test CD

Mondo Rescue and Mindi Linux HOWTO
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# 6.1. Making a Test CD

Mindi is a vital part of the backup procedure. If you have used Mondo before or if you are in a hurry, skip steps 6.2 and 6.3; go straight to QuickStart.

However, if you have time or if you have been having trouble getting Mondo to work, I would recommend trying out Mindi directly (rather than via Mondo) to see if it can produce a bootable CD on your system.

Make sure you are root while doing this, otherwise mindi will fail, now do this.

If you have any problems, please:-

- read /var/log/mindi.log

- feel free to edit mindi (it's a shell script, btw) to try to fix the problem yourself
- contact the mailing list if you get stuck.

Type:-

    bash# mindi

Example screen output, selecting to use your own kernel, to create boot disks, and to create a bootable CD image:

    Mindi Linux mini-distro generator v0.72 by HRabson <hugorabson@msn.com>
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Do you want to use your own kernel to build the boot disk (y/n) ? y
    Your kernel is /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.14-k6 (v2.4.14-k6)
    Generating list of dependency files........................ Done.
    Analyzing your keyboard's configuration.
    Adding the following keyboard mapping tables:................... Done
    Dropping i686-optimized libraries if appropriate.............Done
    Assembling dependency files........ Done.
    The files have been subdivided into 2 directories.
    Your mountlist will look like this:-
    DEVICE MOUNTPOINT FORMAT SIZE (MB)
    /dev/hda3 / ext2 996
    /dev/hda2 swap swap 127
    /dev/hda4 /usr ext2 6189
    Tarring and zipping the groups......... Done.
    Creating data disk #1...#2... Done.
    1722KB boot disk was created OK............................ Done.
    2880KB boot disk was created OK............................ Done.
    In the directory '/root/images/mindi' you will find the images:-
    mindi-boot.1722.img mindi-boot.2880.img mindi-data-1.img mindi-data-2.img
    Would you like to create boot+data floppy disks now (y/n) ?y
    WARNING! THIS WILL ERASE YOUR FLOPPY DISKS.
    About to write boot disk. Please press ENTER.
    Writing boot disk.................................................. Done.
    About to write data disk #1. Please press ENTER.
    Writing data disk #1........................... Done.
    About to write data disk #2. Please press ENTER.
    Writing data disk #2........................... Done.
    Shall I make a bootable CD image? (y/n) y
    Finished.

    One 1.72MB boot disk, one 2.88MB boot disk and 2 data disks were created.

If your kernel is too large (more than about 900KB) then you cannot make boot floppies, although you can still make a bootable CD image. The easiest way to test Mindi in either case is to say 'n' to its first question and 'y' to its second, then use the separate application cdrecord to make a bootable CD-R or CD-RW.

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