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I'm about to send my laptop (Lenovo U31-70, Lubuntu 16.04) away to be repaired, they could wipe it clean and install Windows 10 on it. I want to backup my entire machine (single physical HDD, LVM), and restore it after the laptop would return. How would you recommend that I to do that?

In the few last days, the F11 and the down key have stopped functioning well. The laptop is still under warranty. I spoke with Lenovo support, and apparently it is possibly due to corrosion of faulty soldering and the representative advised me to send it back for a keyboard replacement.

Originally the OS was Windows 10, I gparted, wiped it clean and installed Lubuntu 16.04. When the laptop returns from being repaired, I think it will be wiped clean and have Windows 10 again.

Ideally, I would take out the HDD and give them the laptop to repair, but the guy said that it isn't possible and would void my warranty.

How would you recommend me to backup my entire system such that once the laptop comes back, I can, with minimal effort, just restore everything to the last state?

Burgi
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Hemulin
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    just not clear why they should wipe hdd to replace keyboard – Drako May 26 '17 at 07:35
  • Totally agree. Nevertheless, he said they would and I don't have power for yet another futile discussion with costumer service representative which won't lead anywhere. – Hemulin May 26 '17 at 07:52
  • Would `rsync` not work in this instance? – Burgi May 26 '17 at 07:53
  • As your computer seems to have issues, the simplest is most likely that you take your HD out, plug it as external to another computer, then make an image of it. (For this you will need to buy an adaptor for your HD) – Jonathan May 26 '17 at 08:20
  • @Jonathan - I was told clearly that removing the HDD will void the warranty. – Hemulin May 26 '17 at 08:26
  • @Burgi - I found the rsnapshot from the question that slhck have marked as duplicate (BTW, saw that before, don't think it is a duplicate). But it doesn't seem to work on the /boot and /root mount points. – Hemulin May 26 '17 at 08:26
  • You can do filesystem snapshots from the running system (like Time Machine), but if you want to clone your entire HDD, see the other answers linked, mentioning PartImage, `dd`, or CloneZilla. – slhck May 26 '17 at 08:49
  • @slhck thought about using dd but from my experience it is slow and often has errors on large blocks. [this answer](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/144172/full-dd-copy-from-hdd-to-hdd#answer-144227) only to an external HDD, seems like the way to do it. Thanks. – Hemulin May 26 '17 at 09:06
  • Like I said, if you don't want to mess with `dd` (which I can understand), check out CloneZilla, which is also mentioned in the other question. Really easy to use. – slhck May 26 '17 at 09:08
  • @slhck it seems I have done mistake trying to expand my answers from SO to SU, my bad - I though this is superuser site, so the level of answers should be appropriate. I was wrong, so I will leave this site, I don't have time and willpower to write online step-by-step manuals for all the easy tasks some can encounter. I assumes that directions of what to do and where to look should be enough. – Drako May 26 '17 at 09:22
  • @Drako Reading your answer, I myself (with quite a bit of experience on Linux) would have been quite confused, as you seemed to know what you were talking about, but you didn't give enough information for someone to just get started. Had I been a somewhat inexperienced user, I wouldn't have known what exactly to do. Just giving a link and then telling the user to go there and have a look, without mentioning the specific tool to use or the requirements for getting it done is just not enough. – slhck May 26 '17 at 09:26
  • We really strive to have higher quality posts. It's like when you go to a home improvement shop to ask staff how to build a shelf and the guy just tells you to go have a look at the department where they sell wood and saws. – slhck May 26 '17 at 09:26
  • @slhck as I mentioned - I was wrong - I misunderstood level of the audiense of the site, I'll better stay with SO :) You are totally right that the answer was not for the beginner. – Drako May 26 '17 at 09:38

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