Backing up data

If your server is no longer booting properly or you need to recover files before reinstalling, you can access your data through the rescue system.

1. Enable the rescue system

   As explained in this getting started:

   • Select the server
   • Navigate to "Rescue" and click on "Enable rescue & power cycle"
   • After the reboot, connect to the server as root user.

2. Mount the root partition

   Run lsblk and identify the name of the root partition (e.g. sda1).

   Mount the root partition into /mnt:

   Replace sda1 with the name of your root partition.

   mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

   You can now navigate through the file structure of your server's primary disc under /mnt.

3. Back up data

   Transfer the data to your local machine using scp or rsync. Example commands on your local machine:

   scp -r root@<your-server-ip>:/mnt/home/user/important-data ./
   rsync -avz root@<your-server-ip>:/mnt/etc ./backup/

   In addition to the local copy of the data, you can take a Snapshot or enable Backups in Hetzner Console or via the Hetzner API to store a copy of the full disk. If anything goes wrong, you can rebuild the server via the Snapshot or Backup and try again.

4. Restart the server

   Once your data is secured, restart your server to leave the rescue system:

   reboot

The data should now be save.