Backup/restore

[manifesto]

Hi all,
I wanna have your advice.
I have many partitions on my laptop with several linux install.
I want to rearrange all partitions, to better use space.
Basically 1 primary for datas (ext4), 1 primary for windows, 1 extended to store all linux paritions.
(I still have this 1st partition used by windows rescue or something like that and I cant merge it into another one ...)

What is the best way to backup/restore those linux partitions ?
My idea was to
1 - backup all distro to ext storage using tar (I do not backup OS will runnning this OS) :
=> mount /dev/sdaX /mnt ; cd /mnt ; tar cf /data/thisdistro.tar . ; cd / ; umount /mnt
2 - boot external device (like usb key), rebuild parts, restore all distros, change back fstab with new partitions
3 - On the last restore (sabayon) rebuild boot block (grub-install/mkconfig)

My main concern is using tar, is that the proper backup tool.
Any comment ?

[joeoden]

There are quite a few different partition backup programs available
For now I am using fsarchiver, have a look to see if this is the type of backup/restore program you have in mind http://www.fsarchiver.org/

Most of the rescue disks that are available have fsarchiver as well as other backup programs I prefer the gentoo based http://www.sysresccd.org/ rescue disk

[manifesto]

I will check out that thanks for sharing
package exist also in sabayon : http://packages.sabayon.org/quicksearch ... er&x=0&y=0