(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Strange problem with Pudd. I select the first partition for backup and it seems it decides to add another partition on its own. Look at the screenshots, they are pretty much self explanatory.

How does it get from /dev/sda1 to /dev/sda11? Because of the number '1'? Well, maybe not quite. In my second attempt, I mounted sda3. So it was no longer available as a backup source. The result was that I selected sda1, and this time Pudd added sda12 on its own instead of sda11.

I don't know what the logic for this bug is, I just know it's messed up.

1. I experienced this kind of problem back in the time when I used Pudd a lot for making backup images.

2. The main symptom to be aware of is:
pudd-bug-3
Where the extra [random?] partition [sda11] is added.
[See screenshot below]

3. My recollection is poor, but...
I don't think I ever found the cause of this...
But I did find a way to work around it by preventing the addition of the extra partition after the one chosen by the user.

4. Problem is I can hardly remember how I did it.
I think the secret of success, was to make the 2nd partition inaccessible.
e.g. Mount the 2nd partition [sda11] prior to a repeat attempt at using Pudd to image the 1st partition.

5. Somewhere there will be at least 1 post by me on how I did the above, but so far I cannot find it.

Instead of Pudd, have a look at gnost. It will back up an NTFS partition much faster.

Found this post...

In this thread...

This problem eventually disappeared...
I think I must have done something [Puppy OS related] to cause it, and over the course of time, with changes of Puppy and/or updates, it was no longer there.

I chose my Windows partition for copying to a file, and in the next step it says I have chosen it and on the line below is another partition also (from a USB HD that I planned to copy to.)

So Any suggestions are welcome.

(I used to backup partitions with Bootit New Generation. I was hoping to be able to do it from Puppy)

Luluc wrote:How does it get from /dev/sda1 to /dev/sda11? Because of the number '1'? Well, maybe not quite. In my second attempt, I mounted sda3. So it was no longer available as a backup source. The result was that I selected sda1, and this time Pudd added sda12 on its own instead of sda11.

Yes, it is because of a '1' digit, but not the '1' digit on "sda1" and "sda11".

Internally, Pudd identified the twelve available partitions on your PC as "1PART" through "12PART". You chose the first item in the menu, so the output from Xdialog was "1PART". Then when Pudd searched its list of available partitions for the line with information about "1PART', it searched for any line containing the string "1PART" somewhere in the line. So it matched on both the line containing "1PART" and the line containing "11PART" ("11PART"). The latter line was for partition sda11, the eleventh item in the menu.

But when you mounted sda3 and it no longer was one of the available partitions, Pudd still found the lines containing "1PART" and "11PART", but now the line identified as "11PART" was for sda12, now the eleventh item in the menu.

Since the internal identifiers (e.g., "1PART") are the first thing on each line of the list of available partitions, the code simply needs to be corrected to search for a match only at the very beginning of each line, not anywhere in the line as is currently the case.

I've posted an explanation and a suggested fix in another thread related to this bug: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 306#674306

If anyone has a PC without any irreplaceable data on its drives, understands the risks, and would like to test the fix, I'd be curious to hear the results.

Otherwise, until the fix is implemented and tested, the work-around (discovered by Sylvander) is to temporarily mount some partitions that you won't be using as a source or destination. Because those partitions are mounted, they are no longer "available" for use with Pudd, and so will no longer appear in Pudd's menus. If you are working with the first partition in the menu, you would need to mount enough partitions to reduce the number of menu entries to ten or less. If you are working with the second partition in the menu, you would need to mount enough partitions to reduce the number of menu entries to eleven or less. Etc.

Better yet, until this gets fixed, use a different utility than Pudd. A utility that overwrites partitions and has bugs in it makes me nervous.