[SWLUG] Meeting/Cyfarfod << Caerfyrddin / Carmarthen 15th etc

[Justin Mitchell]

On Thu, 2011-03-10 at 18:48 +0000, ilyan wrote:
> I intend to be there.
> 
> Nervous to try - should I be able to copy files  from a Windows machine 
> to a Linux machine through a router?      General loss of venturality on 
> my part.
> 
> Told that a Windows hard  drive was failing, I acquired a Seagate GoFlex 
> 320 GB USB drive which says it might need reformatting for MAC but runs 
> on Windows 7, XP.etc.  Might it also work with recent Linux?   If 
> partitioned (not clearly explained how)  might it be usable for  holding 
> backup data from the different systems?
> 
> Might it be possible to work it to  include a Linux system in a 
> backup.   It said it would not back up 'systems or programs' but perhaps 
> it would not recognise Linux as a system,

As far as i know it will appear to linux just like any other USB disk,
as just another disk. Forget what it claims the (windows) software will
or wont do, thats irrelevant.

Most likely it will be formatted as a FAT filesystem of some variety,
which works just fine on any linux system. If it is formatted as an NTFS
filesystem (like more modern windows system disks are) then that should
also work fine on most modern distributions.

And if you can read and write to a disk, you can backup stuff to it just
by copying the files.

Whichever distro you choose will undoubtedly have a selection of backup
software available to install if you want to do anything more advanced.

More specific recommendations on what software to use would depend on
which linux distro you use, and what it is your trying to achieve.