Ubuntu – Will this backup the partition contents of both linux and windows

backupdual-bootpartitioning

The partition table of my /sda disk got corrupted. I don't know the details of what happened exactly, but I can still read the disk, and boot into Linux, but not into Windows 8 anymore. I'm quite new to Linux and this doesn't seem to be easy to fix, so I decided to just backup my data to another disk, format the /sda disk, and put the data back.

/sda contains: 

/sda2 which is Win8 *NTFS*  
/sda3 is an extended partition containing:   
    /sda5 which is Linux / (filesystem root) *EXT4*   
    /sda6 which is swap.

/sdb is a one partition NTFS disk containing no OS, and only data.
/sdc5, a partition on my third disk, contains /home. EXT4

Here is how I was planning to backup my data:

  1. Boot Linux from USB,
  2. Use sudo cp -afv to copy /sda5 contents to a folder on /sdc5,
  3. Use sudo cp -afv to copy /sda2 contents to a folder on the /sdb disk.

Format the /sda disk, partition it the same way again, and copy the data back using the same sudo cp -afv command (all from a Linux Live USB).

So my big question is, will all this work?

Details regarding my partition problem in case you're interested.

Best Answer

I would recommend to do an image of your disk. If you are able to access your partitions with Nautilus better do that. Again, you may want to repair Windows boot instead of messing with your partitions.

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