Mixed Backup
This is the most complex method, but its also the most flexible. It should also produce backups that are substantially smaller then the previous methods, which is beneficial to 8G+ owners. First open a terminal window and become a “super user” with “sudo -i”. Next we're going to create compressed tar archives of system, and user partitions. 

Create the directories for the partitions to be mounted on. 

mkdir /mnt/sda1 

mkdir /mnt/sda2 

Now mount the partitions. 

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2 

Now CD to the first directory. 

cd /mnt/sda1 

And create the archive file. 

tar -cpszf /PATH/TO/BACKUP-sda1.tar.gz . 

When finished CD to the next directory. 

cd /mnt/sda2 

Now archive here as well. 

tar -cpszf /PATH/TO/BACKUP-sda2.tar.gz . 

Ok now the majority of the files are backed up. But there's still a bit that needs to be done. Next lets backup sda3 and sda4, now I personally don't see a current use for sda3 but we are trying to create a way to make a “perfect restore” First sda3. 

dd if=/dev/sda3 | gzip -c9 > /PATH/TO/BACKUP-sda3.img.gz 

Now sda4. 

dd if=/dev/sda4 | gzip -c9 > /PATH/TO/BACKUP-sda4.img.gz 

Ok now we have all the partitions backed up. However we now need to backup the boot blocks and partition tables. First the mbr”Master Boot Record” combined with the partition table and the “protected storage” section that grub uses for its stage 1.5 

dd if=/dev/sda bs=8192 count=1 | gzip -c9 > /PATH/TO/BACKUP-boot.img.gz 

Now there shouldn't be anything on the boot blocks for sda1 and sda2 but lets back them up for good measure too. 

dd if=/dev/sda1 bs=512 count=1 | gzip -c9 > /PATH/TO/BACKUP-boot-sda1.img.gz 

dd if=/dev/sda2 bs=512 count=1 | gzip -c9 > /PATH/TO/BACKUP-boot-sda2.img.gz 

Congratulations you've now backed up your system, now onto the restoration! 

First thing we need a partition table. 

gunzip -c /PATH/TO/BACKUP-boot.img.gz | dd of=/dev/sda 

With this we should have our partition table, and boot block plus the reserved section for grub restored. Now we need to put some filesystems on those partitions. 

mkfs.ext2 -L SYSTEM /dev/sda1 

mkfs.ext3 -L USER /dev/sda2 

If it asks you if your sure just tell it yes. Now we should restore the rest of our boot blocks just in case we had something on them. 

gunzip -c /PATH/TO/BACKUP-boot-sda1.img.gz | dd of=/dev/sda1 

gunzip -c /PATH/TO/BACKUP-boot-sda2.img.gz | dd of=/dev/sda2 

Ok now on to the files, to restore those we need to mount the newly formated partitions so first lets create the mount points. 

mkdir /mnt/sda1 

mkdir /mnt/sda2 

Mount the partitions: 

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1 

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2 

Ok now on to the first directory. 

cd /mnt/sda1 

And restore its files. 

tar -xf /PATH/TO/BACKUP-sda1.tar.gz 

And to the next. 

cd /mnt/sda2 

Restore also. 

tar -xf /PATH/TO/BACKUP-sda2.tar.gz 

Ok the only pieces left are sda3 and sda4, and they are restored pretty simply. 

gunzip -c /PATH/TO/BACKUP-sda3.img.gz | dd of=/dev/sda3 

gunzip -c /PATH/TO/BACKUP-sda4.img.gz | dd of=/dev/sda4 

Now your system should be restored. If you at anytime you want to backup you user changes after this just use the “tar” method described above for user partitions.

How to mount a unionfs filesystem. First you need to create 3 folders, two is for the filesystems on your SSD, the last for the actual unionfs.
mount -t ext2 -o ro $ROOT /mnt-system
mount -t ext3 -o rw /dev/sda2 /mnt-user
mount -t unionfs -o dirs=/mnt-user=rw:/mnt-system=ro unionfs /mnt
This will mount a unionfs filesystem at /mnt  ,from where you will do the file backup

Boot the eeePC.
Get a terminal window by typing ctrl-alt-T. In that window execute the following commands:

sudo bash
cd /boot
mkdir tmp
cd tmp
gunzip -c ../initramfs-eeepc.img | cpio -iNow edit the file init with the editor of your choice. You need to make the following changes:


Modify line 12. This line originally reads:
mount -t ext2 -o ro $ROOT /mnt-system
And needs to be changed into:
mount -t ext2 -o rw,noatime $ROOT /mnt
(so change ro into rw,noatime and remove the -system part). Make sure, there is no space in rw,noatime. Otherwise your new system won't boot. 

Comment out the following lines, by adding a # sign as the first character of each line, between these lines (inclusive):
From the line that reads: if [ -n “$XANDROSSCAN” ]; then
To the line that reads: umount -l /mnt-user 

After making the changes your file should look like the sample below. (This file is copied from a EEE PC 701. Other EEE PC models may have slightly different file for their different configurations e.g. mounting extra SSDs). You are advised to perform amendment line-by-line carefully, instead of overwriting the file with this content.


#!/bin/sh
mount -t proc proc /proc

if [ -n "$XANDROSBOOTDEBUG" ]; then
    /bin/busybox sh
    set -x
fi

ROOT=`cat /proc/cmdline | sed 's/.*root=// ; s/ .*//'`
#VERSION=`cat /proc/version | cut -f3 -d" "`

mount -t ext2 -o rw,noatime $ROOT /mnt
if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
    echo Could not mount OS on $ROOT. Starting debugging shell....
    /bin/busybox sh
fi

#if [ -n "$XANDROSSCAN" ]; then
#    exec switch_root /mnt-system /sbin/scanuser.sh
#fi
#
#if [ -n "$XANDROSRESTORE" ]; then
#    exec switch_root /mnt-system /sbin/formatuser.sh
#fi
#
#if [ -z "`grep nosplash /proc/cmdline`" ]; then
#    echo -n ""
#    cp /mnt-system/boot/startup.fb /dev/fb/0
#fi
#
#if ! mount -t ext3 -o rw /dev/sda2 /mnt-user; then
#    echo Error mounting user partition. Must run filesystem scan!
#    exec switch_root /mnt-system /sbin/scanuser.sh
#fi
#
## Factory auto-format functionality
#if [ -f /mnt-user/.autoformat ]; then
#    umount /mnt-user
#    exec switch_root /mnt-system /sbin/formatuser.sh -- --auto
#fi
#
#insmod /mnt-system/lib/modules/$VERSION/kernel/fs/unionfs/unionfs.ko > /dev/null
#
#mount -t unionfs -o dirs=/mnt-user=rw:/mnt-system=ro unionfs /mnt
#if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
#    echo Could not mount unionfs. Starting debugging shell....
#    /bin/busybox sh
#fi
#
#mount --move /mnt-system /mnt/mnt
#umount -l /mnt-user

umount /proc

if [ -n "$INIT" ]; then
    if [ -n "$XANDROSBOOTDEBUG" ]; then
    exec switch_root /mnt $INIT </mnt/dev/console >/mnt/dev/console
    else
    exec switch_root /mnt $INIT </mnt/dev/null >/mnt/dev/null
    fi
else
    exec switch_root /mnt /sbin/fastinit "$@" </mnt/dev/console >/mnt/dev/console
fi

echo
echo Init Failed. Starting emergency shell....
/bin/busybox sh
Finally execute the following command: 

find | cpio -H newc -o | gzip -9 > ../initramfs-eeepc-nounionfs.img
If you plan on converting to ext3, this is also a good moment to make a second image file, by performing the following two steps. (If not please move on the clean up). 

edit line 12 of the init file and change ext2 by ext3
find | cpio -H newc -o | gzip -9 > ../initramfs-eeepc-nounionfs-ext3.img
Note the changed filename in the last step. Do not combine this with the previous steps, you do need initramfs-eeepc-nounionfs.img (with the ext2 line) as well! 

And finally let's clean up our work by issueing the following commands: 

cd ..
rm -rf tmp