Hi Lisa, On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 09:25:17AM +0100, Lisa Singh wrote: You can't run two copies of your VM at once. You're getting this message because your VM is currently running and you're trying to start another instance of it in rescue mode. https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Rescue I'm assuming that you can't log in to your VPS to shut it down. If so, you can try the "shutdown" command from the Xen Shell first. If that does not complete for any reason then you can ctrl-c it and use the "destroy" command instead. That is like yanking the power. Once you're booted into the Rescue VM there are some examples on that article that might help you with what you want to do: https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Rescue#Taking_an_image_of_a_whole_VM As you say you only want a copy of your home directory you'll probably want to mount it first instead of taking a copy of the disk image. (I know that you don't have a partition table on your block device so it will be xvda not xvda1) $ sudo mount -v /dev/xvda /mnt $ sudo rsync -PSHavz /mnt/home/ you@somewhere.else:/path/ or $ sudo tar -C /mnt -JSpcvf - home | ssh you(a)somewhere.else 'cat > bitfolk-home.tar.xz' Cheers, Andy -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting