Migrating to a new disk

[Hadders]

Hmm, some good points there, thanks for the tip about "g4u" and 
"parted", I'm having a look at the cp/cpio command now...

However, my problem is that I have whole bunch of additional apps 
installed and configured already, VMWare Workstation and Oracle 9.2 for 
example, so I'm not keen to relive the pain of reinstalling Oracle.
Not to mention all the customization I've done to things over the past 
18 months... ekk, it's a config nightmare...

Ummm, in many ways I haven't been completely honest about my disk 
config. I usually have a Windows partition up the front then use 
NTLoader to dual boot (dd the first 512bytes to a file that is 
referenced in boot.ini)
... I have the boot sector installed on the /boot linux partition.
I figured I'd just reboot into rescue mode and mount the partition then 
run grub again to reinstall the boot record on to the partition...

I tend not to worry about partitioning root (/) and /home separately.  
Because I install all manner of apps I chew through 3GB pretty quick and 
can't be bothered with the partition headaches that can cause, eg out of 
space.
This is part of my current reinstall reason. I have 3 VMWare XP images 
at about 8GB each (Test platforms)
/boot needs to be separate to install the boot record and dual boot with 
Windows in control, of course I found out recently that it was much 
easier to run grub on my laptop to boot between XP, Vista and FC5...


Paul Johnson wrote:
> The problem in your plan is that the "master boot record" will not be
> copied, and without that, your new disk won't go.
>
> You can copy entire partitions in various ways.  I know people who say
> cp with the ARCHIVE option turned on is good enough, but years ago I
> learned an old cpio trick and it always has worked when I want to copy
> file for file:
>
> http://pj.freefaculty.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view.pl/Linuxtips/WebHome
>
> Look 1/2 way down that page.
>
> Actually, though, in your situation, here's what I would so.   Install
> the new disk, and make a FRESH install of linux on it.  Recently, I've
> decided I do not care to learn any more about LVM because I have no
> need of it, so I just go  old school and specify partitions.  I would
> specify 500meg for /boot, 3000meg for /, 1500meg for swap, and a big
> chunk of the rest for /home.  After the install is done, then install
> the old disk in the system, and simply copy from your old /home
> partition to the new one.  But if you like LVM and can understand it,
> then it would let you resize partitions more easily. I just find it
> annoying, and other tools I like are incompatible with it.
>
> Oh, one other idea is to use g4u (ghost 4 unix) to copy your entire
> disk into a file, and then use that file to copy the whole disk onto
> your new system.  Then resize partitions with parted.  Note, you need
> to copy the entire disk to get the MBR. You can simply copy partitions
> with g4u, that works fine.  Except for the MBR.
>
> pj
>
>
>
> On 11/26/06, Hadders <fedora at workingwithit.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>   I have an old 120GB hard disk, and a much newer, 320GB hard disk.
>>
>> I'd like to migrate my linux (FC5) setup to this newer disk, and also
>> want to enlarge the partitions.
>>
>> This may seem naive but can I....
>>
>> i) Boot up using the FC5 linux rescue mode
>> ii) Manually partition the new disk, using fdisk
>> iii) Use e2label and set the labels to be the same on the new disk
>> partitions as the old, what is the command to tell me the current 
>> labels?
>> iii) Mount both the old and new disks partitions into temporary
>> directories I create
>> iv) Do a 'cp -Rv /old-part/* /new-part/' command? Will that get ALL
>> files, including hidden dot files?
>> v) Edit the new copies, fstab and alter the mount points accordingly,
>> that aren't using labels?
>>
>> Any pointers will be appreciated.
>>
>> Thank You.
>> Hadders
>>
>>
>>
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>
>