Author Topic: How can I install/update using LiveCD w/o losing my Home/ partition files?  (Read 568 times)

Offline spartacus

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Awhile back, I did a large update via Synaptic, which informed me of a number of problems experienced during the update.  To my surprise, I rebooted to find a grey background and a new look.  I was unaware that 11.6 was arriving, with kernel upgrade, KDE upgrade &c.  Things seemed to be working fine until I rebooted again and at the login screen, unwisely chose "Awesome" to see what dat.

At that point, the screen hung for awhile and then delivered me to a black screen with 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 at the top (or similar).  I could do nothing but a rightclick got me into a CLI,  Long story short, it was not awesome at all.  And whenever I try to boot, I wind up with a login terminal.  Apparently, it cannot connect to the x server, or it fails to find my display...

To stop wasting my time, I have made a good copy of the KDE Livecd and booted from it.  My Home/ & Root/ partitions are still there and mountable.  But I want to get on with things and install from the Livecd.

Is there a simple way to preserve/backup those two partitions --ideally on removable storage?  Then let the livecd installation proceed, and then bring the backed up files from Home/...back again into the appropriate directories (documents, pics, videos...) of the new installation?

Advice appreciated!

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  Spartacus

quodcunque ostendis mihi sic, incredulus odi: whatever you show me in an overwrought way, I detest and disbelieve (Horace)
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  Spartacus

[b/]non eadem est aetas, non mens:[/b] my age is no longer the same, nor my inclination (Horace)

Offline The Chief

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If /home is truly on a separate partition, them just tell the installer NOT to format that partition.  It will still be there, un-touched, after the installation with all your data as it was, as well as keeping all your tweaks and fine tuning for all your programs. 

That's why we normally recommend that /home be on a separate partition.

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