Raw, full, direct backup of UC560 compact flash?

[Just Someone YKnow]

We have a UC560 that's been installed since 2010, with I believe service coverage expiring this fall.

I would to try upgrading the software myself, though I am not a Cisco trained expert, and so I realize there's a potential to really mess this up and break the existing system as it is running right now.

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It looks like all there is for storage are these two compact flash cards plugged into the front of the UC560.

It seems to me, that I should be able to do a full backup of the entire UC560 as it is configured, by simply powering it down, plugging each CF card into the USB memory card reader on my desktop PC, and copying everything on each CF to a folder on my desktop computer.

Or use a free "disk cloner tool" like CloneZilla to do a full sector-level backup of the CF cards. Apparently the CF cards are only about 2 gigabytes, so that would be no trouble at all to back up with a raw disk cloner tool.

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That way if the upgrade process blows up in my face, I can simply plug the CF cards back into my desktop computer and write all those files back to the cards again.

Can this actually be done, as easily and directly as this?

What filesystem types are used on the UC560 CF cards, and what do I need to read/write to them from a desktop computer? Can Windows 7 read and write to the CF cards directly, without causing any problems?

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Apparently all I would need to do to prepare the UC560 for pulling the CF cards out, is to shut down CUE from the console:

service-module integrated-Service-Engine 0/0 shutdown

And unplug the UC560.

Is this correct?

[paolo bevilacqua · Accepted solution]

You can do as you mentioned, it is a regular FAT filesystem.

You do not need to shutdown anything to pull the CF card out and in. It is not used after the unit has booted.

Anydthe command you quoted is for CUE, that is an internal module and has nothing to do with UC, and is not needed as well.

[brad.pilecki]

Paolo,

I believe you may be wrong in this situation.  Please recall that power outages have resulting in many complaining of CUE errors upon power-on due to a halt corruption. Many have either been faced with a complete CUE firmware upgrade/samegrade to fix while others have a completely failed unit that won;t recover.

As a matter of practice, always shut down the CUE module before hard-pulling the cord. Warm reboots (reloads) are fine, but never yank the cord on a production device hosting voice mail without first "gracefully" shutting CUE down.  No bueno.

UC560#service-module integrated-Service-Engine 0/0 shutdown
Do you want to proceed with shutdown?[confirm]
Use service module reset command to recover from shutdown.

WARNING: Confirm that the service-module status shows 'is Shutdown' before removing the module or powering off the system !

UC560#

Service module in slot 0 will shut down within 105 seconds... etc.. etc.. until it responds with:

%SERVICEMODULE-5-SHUTDOWN2: Service module GigabitEthernet0/1/3 shutdown complete

Now feel free to yank the cord.

[paolo bevilacqua · Accepted solution]

Please read my answer again.

I simply stated that it is not needed to shutdown UC500 or CUE to extract UC500 CF. Nothing more.