Full system restore from tape question

["Allen Belk" <allen belk saintleo edu>]

Linux gurus,
    For many years I have been spoiled by managing Tru64 (DEC) UNIX machines
and am now having a tough time trying to do some of the same things on Linux
that I could easily do on Tru64.  Primarily full system restores.

    On Tru64 machines, I can boot from the CD, create the device special
files for tape drives and disk drives, mount the quiescent filesystem and
back it up COMPLETELY.  If I ever needed to do a full system restore, I
could boot from the CD, create the tape and fisk device special files and
then do a full restore.  I understand the difference in bootstrap concepts
between iX86/Linux systems and other types of hardware, ie. lilo vs.
osf_boot, etc.  If I wanted to do a full system restore on a Linux machine,
I would have to Install from the CD and then overwrite with the restore from
tape.  To make a long story short, If I have a complete system backup on
tape and a machine with a bare hard drive, what is the simplest/quickest way
to get that backup restored to that machine?  I understand that lilo will
have to come into play at some point in order to write the boot information
but that is secondary to my main problem.

Any ideas, suggestions, bits of wisdom or prayers will be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,

Allen

 | Allen Belk, Systems Administrator
 | Office of Information Technology
 | Saint Leo University, Saint Leo, FL
 | allen belk saintleo edu  -  (352) 588-8592