Greetings,

Are there known changes in the ext3 partition format or boot sector 
format, particularly with grub, between Scientific Linux 3.08(i386) 
and 4.4(x86_64)?

Most of my boxes are running SL3.08 (i386), but a few new computers 
are set up with SL4.4 (x86_64).  We like to use Norton Ghost to make 
complete system image backups.  What we have found is that while it 
works fine with SL3.08 machines, the new boxes fail with some sort of 
hard drive read errors.  I have tried a few different hard drives to 
eliminate a hardware problem, and have even removed the disks and put 
them in the older computers where Ghost is known to work, but get the 
same errors in the same places.

It looks like something has changed in the drive formatting that 
Ghost does not know how to handle.  Perhaps the difference might be 
attributed to the i386 / x86_64 difference?

Can some recommend other imaging tools that are similar to Ghost in 
function that work with more recent Linux systems?  In a perfect 
world, I'd like something that writes a compressed image to bootable 
DVD, with software to restore the image to a different drive.  I'd 
prefer to avoid tools that store images across a network, but stick 
to those that can directly burn to DVD.  Being able to resize 
partitions during the restore is a plus.

Thanks,
-Andy



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Andrew R. Cook                                            Phone (631) 344-4782
Brookhaven National Laboratory                              FAX (631) 344-5815
Chemistry Department, Bldg 555a, Rm 292                          [log in to unmask]
Upton, NY 11973-5000             http://www.chemistry.bnl.gov/~acook/cook.html