Failing Disk

[Jim Canfield]

Troy Knabe wrote:
> I have a Linux x86_64 4.4 system with 2 disk bays, but only 1 disk in the system currently.  I believe the disk is failing and I have ordered a replacement.  Assuming that I am right, and the disk is failing, how can I dump the system disk from the failing disk to the new one, and still be able to boot off of the new disk?
>
>   
If you are getting another drive that is the same size or larger, you 
can use DD to duplicate everything bit for bit. 

Assuming old drive is /dev/sda and new is /dev/sdb:

1) Boot using a rescue CD, either redhat or my favorite - sysrescuecd 
(http://www.sysresccd.org/)

2) At root prompt verify /dev/sda is actually your old disk using fdisk

#fdisk /dev/sda....and press "p" to view partition table.

3) dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

4) Wait...it will take a while.

5) Remove old drive insert new drive.

Note:  If you have corrupt or unreadable data on the primary drive, dd 
may fail. At that point you might want to start looking at some of the 
tools on the rescuecd.

-Jim