EXT4 to EXT3 restoration

You can't "change" formatting as part of a restore. The EXT3 partition would be deleted and replaced with what you restored (assuming the partition's space was large enough).

My whole problem here is that EXT4, in my version of TI, can only back up sector-by-sector (which is less than ideal)... I'm trying to find a way to get around this. Any suggestions, or am I hosed?

How much data is on the partition? Have you tried creating a sector-by-sector image to see how large it would be?

TI 2011 supports Ext4 as do other more current programs.

You could possibly convert the partition from Ext4 to Ext3 (I've never tried it, but from what I've read, it doesn't sound like an easy process). Another option would be to copy all the data off, reformat the partition as Ext3, and copy the data back. This would probably be much simpler if it's a data partition and not an OS partition.

Personally, I would recommend using a imaging program capable of working with Ext4 partitions if you need to stick with Ext4.

I don't need EXT4, it's just what I started with before I realized it was a problem with TI v11. It IS an OS partition... which is why this is so problematic.

Does sector by sector copy the whole partition... I mean, is a 90GB partition going to be a 90GB backup?

It will back up every sector (used and unused space). However, if compression is still used (don't remember for sure if TI 11 does this), the backup may not be as large as you think. Results may be different with Ext3/4 than with NTFS.

Is reinstalling the OS an option? If so, you may be able to specify using Ext3.

Yeah... I can reinstall, just trying to avoid it. Thanks for the info. I'll try a sector-by-sector backup when I get a chance and see what happens.