[plug] backup problems

[Jim Householder]

Hi

I decided to get smart this time and backup everything before 'yum update'.

Try 1:  partimage.  Worked fine for all but / (which contains /usr) - 
3.9GB.  Failed with error "Can't read bitmap block 0 from image"

Try 2:  tar.  Failed after writing 1024 bytes of 10K+ bytes.

Try 3:  cpio pass-through.  Success!  I got the file list from locate as 
it appeared cleaner than what ls gave me.

Questions:
1.  How do I deal with the bitmap error?  I really do not want to risk a 
progressively more flawed system by upgrading when it's not safe.

2.  Is what I copied with cpio suitable for restoring /, or did it miss 
critical things.

TIA
Jim

BTW  /usr is not a separate fs because I got tired of distro installs 
ignoring the separate partition when calculating space available.