Stoopid but pressing backup question

[craigni]

I usually know acronyms, but what is an OP, especially as I am apparently one? :)

I'm getting enamored of rsync to the point where I think that's the backup strategy I'd like to use, with sequential backups of /home to capture user data changes.

So now I'm thinking, OK, I rsync / except /proc, I have that on an external disk, my system disk crashes, how quickly can I get a new disk up as my system disk... and that's where I become mildly confused.  I imagine that I'll reinstall a minimal F8 system with the boot sector, then rsync the backup directory on the external backup disk back to the system disk, and hopefully all will be well.

*But* there are the mysterious boot files...

If I mount my old F7 disk for grins

sudo mount -t ext3 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/f7

I get this stuff

ls /mnt/f7
config-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7      lost+found
config-2.6.22.9-91.fc7        System.map-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7
grub                          System.map-2.6.22.9-91.fc7
initrd-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7.img  vmlinuz-2.6.21-1.3194.fc7
initrd-2.6.22.9-91.fc7.img    vmlinuz-2.6.22.9-91.fc7

So I imagine there are files, I expect in the boot sector, that are important to backup and restore.

So my current questions are:
What are those files?
How do I back them up?
How do I restore them?
Does this strategy of restore the boot sector, mount the external disk with the rsync'd system, then rsync back to the new system disk, make sense?

Many TIA,
Craig


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