transfering linux system to another hard drive

transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Cheryl Homiak]

I apologize for the cross-post, but I'm trying to get info as soon as
possible; even if somebody has just seen this on one of these lists and
can steer me toward the correct archive it would be appreciated.
My hard drive with linux is failing; I have just obtained a 20gig drive
which will have both my dos and linux on it. All drives--my dying linux
drive, my old and tiny dos drive, and my new drive--are all connected to
the computer. I will have to partition the hard drive, but it is being
recognized correctly in the bios and linux. Eventually, the dying drive
(hda) will be removed as will the dos drive (hdd) and the new drive (hdb)
will become hda.  I want to know if there is a way to transfer my linux
from the dying 2.5gig drive to the new 20gig; I am assuming I will first
need to partition the hard drive and the partitioning will probably be
somewhat different from the old drive due to the difference in size.
Sorry for the info repeat to those on blinux.
I know I saw a discussion of just this problem somewhere recently but
haven't been able to locate it.
Also, can I make my partition that will hold dos with linux since I have
no data already onthe hard drive to protect?
thanks.
Cheryl

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Cheryl Homiak]

On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:

simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc
> configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less
> experimental to me.
I would say you are basically right, only how far would I have to go with
the install? What I don't like is that I have to use speakup disk that are
an older version than my present system, and I don't want to install the
old kernel and base system etc. If I can just use the debian rescue and
root disk to create my partitions and initialize them I don't have
aproblem, but I'm trying to avoid having to use ppp at all and having to
do a massive upgrade after I install.

Cheryl

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Janina Sajka]

Cheryl:

You should not think in terms of transferring your linux. The linux 
operating system itself should be reinstalled.

Your data and configuration files, on the other hand, should be 
transferred. The best mechanism is likely some kind of temporary storage 
device, and an upload to someplace willing to accept the size of files 
involved is probably a second choice, though likely untennable at modem 
speeds. But you're on cable, right?

You mention tar'ing your /home directory. This is good. It can, and should 
be restored after the new drive is installed. You should also take your 
/etc tree and any important items from /var, such as /var/spool/mail, 
/var/log (if you like), and /var/ftp and /var/www, if these exist. 

Lastly, you should take /usr/local.

 On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Cheryl Homiak 
wrote:

> I apologize for the cross-post, but I'm trying to get info as soon as
> possible; even if somebody has just seen this on one of these lists and
> can steer me toward the correct archive it would be appreciated.
> My hard drive with linux is failing; I have just obtained a 20gig drive
> which will have both my dos and linux on it. All drives--my dying linux
> drive, my old and tiny dos drive, and my new drive--are all connected to
> the computer. I will have to partition the hard drive, but it is being
> recognized correctly in the bios and linux. Eventually, the dying drive
> (hda) will be removed as will the dos drive (hdd) and the new drive (hdb)
> will become hda.  I want to know if there is a way to transfer my linux
> from the dying 2.5gig drive to the new 20gig; I am assuming I will first
> need to partition the hard drive and the partitioning will probably be
> somewhat different from the old drive due to the difference in size.
> Sorry for the info repeat to those on blinux.
> I know I saw a discussion of just this problem somewhere recently but
> haven't been able to locate it.
> Also, can I make my partition that will hold dos with linux since I have
> no data already onthe hard drive to protect?
> thanks.
> Cheryl
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Will electronic books surpass print books? Read our white paper,
Surpassing Gutenberg, at http://www.afb.org/ebook.asp

Download a free sample Digital Talking Book edition of Martin Luther
King Jr's inspiring "I Have A Dream" speech at
http://www.afb.org/mlkweb.asp

Learn how to make accessible software at
http://www.afb.org/accessapp.asp

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Tommy Moore]

Hi thre.
Why shouldn't someone back up the system like what she wants to do if 
dropping it on to a different drive.
She is after all going to use the same machine and even if she wasn't in a 
lot of cases it would still work.
Would save her a lot of work in the process.
All she's doing is getting a larger drive from what I understand.

Tommy

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Janina Sajka]

Yes, all the hardware except the drive is the same. But, that's just the 
point. Am I wrong about this? Aren't their drive specific params to an 
install?

Second, is installation really that hard? Seems it should be cleaner to 
simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc 
configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less 
experimental to me.

But, I've been wrong before.

 On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:

> Hi thre.
> Why shouldn't someone back up the system like what she wants to do if 
> dropping it on to a different drive.
> She is after all going to use the same machine and even if she wasn't in a 
> lot of cases it would still work.
> Would save her a lot of work in the process.
> All she's doing is getting a larger drive from what I understand.
> 
> Tommy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Will electronic books surpass print books? Read our white paper,
Surpassing Gutenberg, at http://www.afb.org/ebook.asp

Download a free sample Digital Talking Book edition of Martin Luther
King Jr's inspiring "I Have A Dream" speech at
http://www.afb.org/mlkweb.asp

Learn how to make accessible software at
http://www.afb.org/accessapp.asp

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Tommy Moore]

Nope if you make the new partition on the second drive and copy data from 
the first all you do is boot in with boot disk when you changed hdb to hda 
and run lilo.
Have done this multiple times and its allways worked.
you may need to acc lba32 to the top of lilo.conf so that it'll work with 
all drives but once you've done that you should be set to tgo.
I'd rather spend 5 minutes doing this than to spend 20 doing a reinstall.

You can't do this on a running system though you have to do this from boot 
and root disks.
Just fdisk the new drive the way you like and format new partition and 
then mount the drives on different mount points and then do a cp -ap . 
/new_drive
from with in the / directory of old drive and everything should work. 
Remember to reboot between the format and fdisk process though.

Tommy


On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:

> Yes, all the hardware except the drive is the same. But, that's just the 
> point. Am I wrong about this? Aren't their drive specific params to an 
> install?
> 
> Second, is installation really that hard? Seems it should be cleaner to 
> simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc 
> configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less 
> experimental to me.
> 
> But, I've been wrong before.
> 
>  On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:
> 
> > Hi thre.
> > Why shouldn't someone back up the system like what she wants to do if 
> > dropping it on to a different drive.
> > She is after all going to use the same machine and even if she wasn't in a 
> > lot of cases it would still work.
> > Would save her a lot of work in the process.
> > All she's doing is getting a larger drive from what I understand.
> > 
> > Tommy
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Blinux-list mailing list
> > Blinux-list@redhat.com
> > https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> > 
> 
> 

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Rafael Skodlar]

On Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 04:45:51PM -0500, Tommy Moore wrote:
> Nope if you make the new partition on the second drive and copy data from 
> the first all you do is boot in with boot disk when you changed hdb to hda 
> and run lilo.
> Have done this multiple times and its allways worked.
> you may need to acc lba32 to the top of lilo.conf so that it'll work with 

Most of the time you don't need to fiddle with drive parameters. I never 
had problems with that on generic motherboards in over 7 years.

> all drives but once you've done that you should be set to tgo.
> I'd rather spend 5 minutes doing this than to spend 20 doing a reinstall.

RedHat comes with and let's you select Grub lately. I find it better a OS 
loader since it doesn't require any program execution in order to include 
new kernel or OS in it's configuration. All you need to do is edit 
/boot/grub/menu.txt and add similar to whatever you would under LILO.

If there is boot problem you can select a different kernel from the grub 
command line which is not possible under lilo.

> You can't do this on a running system though you have to do this from boot 
> and root disks.
> Just fdisk the new drive the way you like and format new partition and 
> then mount the drives on different mount points and then do a cp -ap . 
> /new_drive
> from with in the / directory of old drive and everything should work. 
> Remember to reboot between the format and fdisk process though.

No need to reboot the computer after format. I never do it (Linux, or any
Unix) and all works fine. The idea of rebooting after running fdisk
(partitioning) or formatting is the most primitive leftover from DOS days
you can imagine. I could never and do not understand why the hell would
one need to reboot the machine after a partition on the drive has been
changed? Shouldn't we reboot after swapping removable cartridge disks,
floppies, tapes, ... That's like saying you have to turn off and on the
engine each time you shift the gear in your car or change a passenger in a 
taxi cab.

> Tommy
> 
> 
> On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
> 
> > Yes, all the hardware except the drive is the same. But, that's just the 
> > point. Am I wrong about this? Aren't their drive specific params to an 
> > install?
> > 
> > Second, is installation really that hard? Seems it should be cleaner to 
> > simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc 
> > configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less 
> > experimental to me.
> > 
> > But, I've been wrong before.
> > 
> >  On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:
> > 
> > > Hi thre.
> > > Why shouldn't someone back up the system like what she wants to do if 
> > > dropping it on to a different drive.
> > > She is after all going to use the same machine and even if she wasn't in a 
> > > lot of cases it would still work.
> > > Would save her a lot of work in the process.
> > > All she's doing is getting a larger drive from what I understand.
> > > 
> > > Tommy

-- 
Rafael

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Brent Harding]

I'd say to transfer because then the system complains of files not present
if you try selective restoring. I've never got a successful full backup of
windows, although with that OS, there's tons of specifics done that
transferring won't fix.
At 04:19 PM 12/4/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Yes, all the hardware except the drive is the same. But, that's just the 
>point. Am I wrong about this? Aren't their drive specific params to an 
>install?
>
>Second, is installation really that hard? Seems it should be cleaner to 
>simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc 
>configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less 
>experimental to me.
>
>But, I've been wrong before.
>
> On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:
>
>> Hi thre.
>> Why shouldn't someone back up the system like what she wants to do if 
>> dropping it on to a different drive.
>> She is after all going to use the same machine and even if she wasn't in a 
>> lot of cases it would still work.
>> Would save her a lot of work in the process.
>> All she's doing is getting a larger drive from what I understand.
>> 
>> Tommy
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Blinux-list mailing list
>> Blinux-list@redhat.com
>> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>> 
>
>-- 
>	
>				Janina Sajka, Director
>				Technology Research and Development
>				Governmental Relations Group
>				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
>
>Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175
>
>Chair, Accessibility SIG
>Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
>http://www.openebook.org
>
>Will electronic books surpass print books? Read our white paper,
>Surpassing Gutenberg, at http://www.afb.org/ebook.asp
>
>Download a free sample Digital Talking Book edition of Martin Luther
>King Jr's inspiring "I Have A Dream" speech at
>http://www.afb.org/mlkweb.asp
>
>Learn how to make accessible software at
>http://www.afb.org/accessapp.asp
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Blinux-list mailing list
>Blinux-list@redhat.com
>https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>
>

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Brent Harding]

One exception in the don't need to reboot idea. If you do partitioning from
the running system to a drive that's in use, it'll warn can't read
partition table, device or resource busy. Then I'd reboot.

>On Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 04:45:51PM -0500, Tommy Moore wrote:
>> Nope if you make the new partition on the second drive and copy data from 
>> the first all you do is boot in with boot disk when you changed hdb to hda 
>> and run lilo.
>> Have done this multiple times and its allways worked.
>> you may need to acc lba32 to the top of lilo.conf so that it'll work with 
>
>Most of the time you don't need to fiddle with drive parameters. I never 
>had problems with that on generic motherboards in over 7 years.
>
>> all drives but once you've done that you should be set to tgo.
>> I'd rather spend 5 minutes doing this than to spend 20 doing a reinstall.
>
>RedHat comes with and let's you select Grub lately. I find it better a OS 
>loader since it doesn't require any program execution in order to include 
>new kernel or OS in it's configuration. All you need to do is edit 
>/boot/grub/menu.txt and add similar to whatever you would under LILO.
>
>If there is boot problem you can select a different kernel from the grub 
>command line which is not possible under lilo.
>
>> You can't do this on a running system though you have to do this from boot 
>> and root disks.
>> Just fdisk the new drive the way you like and format new partition and 
>> then mount the drives on different mount points and then do a cp -ap . 
>> /new_drive
>> from with in the / directory of old drive and everything should work. 
>> Remember to reboot between the format and fdisk process though.
>
>No need to reboot the computer after format. I never do it (Linux, or any
>Unix) and all works fine. The idea of rebooting after running fdisk
>(partitioning) or formatting is the most primitive leftover from DOS days
>you can imagine. I could never and do not understand why the hell would
>one need to reboot the machine after a partition on the drive has been
>changed? Shouldn't we reboot after swapping removable cartridge disks,
>floppies, tapes, ... That's like saying you have to turn off and on the
>engine each time you shift the gear in your car or change a passenger in a 
>taxi cab.
>
>> Tommy
>> 
>> 
>> On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
>> 
>> > Yes, all the hardware except the drive is the same. But, that's just the 
>> > point. Am I wrong about this? Aren't their drive specific params to an 
>> > install?
>> > 
>> > Second, is installation really that hard? Seems it should be cleaner to 
>> > simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc 
>> > configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less 
>> > experimental to me.
>> > 
>> > But, I've been wrong before.
>> > 
>> >  On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:
>> > 
>> > > Hi thre.
>> > > Why shouldn't someone back up the system like what she wants to do if 
>> > > dropping it on to a different drive.
>> > > She is after all going to use the same machine and even if she
wasn't in a 
>> > > lot of cases it would still work.
>> > > Would save her a lot of work in the process.
>> > > All she's doing is getting a larger drive from what I understand.
>> > > 
>> > > Tommy
>
>-- 
>Rafael
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Blinux-list mailing list
>Blinux-list@redhat.com
>https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>
>

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Rafael Skodlar]

On Tue, Dec 04, 2001 at 06:53:54PM -0600, Brent Harding wrote:
> One exception in the don't need to reboot idea. If you do partitioning from
> the running system to a drive that's in use, it'll warn can't read
> partition table, device or resource busy. Then I'd reboot.

Don't partition drive in use! If you want to repartition a drive that's 
currently in use and it's not a system disk then unmount the partitions, 
and do the usual thing. I do that all the time for removable cartridges in 
1.5GB SyQuest drive. Never reboot, it would be annoying if that were a 
requirement and I would go away from such a poor OS that requires it right 
away.

... deleted the rest of previous messages

-- 
Rafael

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[L. C. Robinson]

On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:

> Nope if you make the new partition on the second drive and copy
> data from the first all you do is boot in with boot disk when
> you changed hdb to hda and run lilo.  Have done this multiple
> times and it's always worked.

I agree with this outline, with a few details added.

> you may need to acc [add?] lba32 to the top of lilo.conf so
> that it'll work with all drives but once you've done that you
> should be set to to go.

This only applies to recent systems.  The lilo documentation
says: "Use of LBA32 is recommended on all post-1998 systems" (the
standard was adopted in 1998).  These systems must be able to
"use the Enhanced BIOS packet calls".  Many old BIOSes can only
boot from the first 1024 cylinders.  One solution is to make the
first partition within that space, for a small boot partition,
containing the /boot directory.  10 or 20 megs should be more
than you would ever need.  Just enough for the kernels (old and
new), and the bootloader map files, etc.  If you find that your
BIOS can boot with the new extended standards and a recent
version of lilo (see the lilo documentation), this is not
necessary.  Another solution is to boot with LOADLIN instead of
LILO.

> I'd rather spend 5 minutes doing this than to spend 20 doing a reinstall.

Indeed.  Once the system is working, one can do a normal upgrade.
 
> You can't do this on a running system though you have to do
> this from boot and root disks.

Well, you can do it on an new, unmounted drive, on a running
system.

> Just fdisk the new drive the way you like and format new partition and 

And the "format" command is really a mkfs (make filesystem)
command for your choice of filesystem types (probably mkfs.ext2).
But you probably knew that.

> then mount the drives on different mount points and then do a

> cp -ap .  /new_drive

> from with in the / directory of old drive and everything should
> work. 

I would add the -x option to that (same as --one-file-system, eg.
stay on this file system), or you may have problems with the new
mount point being recursively part of the copy -- kind of a mess.
With the -x option, you will have to copy one partition at a
time, for the old ones.  So the new cp command might be (after
doing a cd to the root of the partition you are copying:

cp -axp *  /new_partition_root_dir/

And don't forget to edit the new /etc/fstab to reflect the new
layout.

> Remember to reboot between the format and fdisk process though.

>From the fdisk man page:

   A sync() and a BLKRRPART ioctl() (reread partition table from
   disk) are performed before exiting when the partition table
   has been updated.   Long  ago it  used  to  be necessary to
   reboot after the use of fdisk.  I do not think this is the
   case anymore - indeed, rebooting too quickly might cause loss
   of not-yet-written  data.  Note  that both the kernel and the
   disk hardware may buffer data.

But then, the cfdisk man page still says:

 W      Write  partition  table  to disk (must enter an upper case W).  Since
        this might destroy data on the disk, you must either confirm or  deny
        the write by entering `yes' or `no'.  If you enter `yes', cfdisk will
        write the partition table to disk and the tell the kernel to  re-read
        the  partition  table from the disk.  The re-reading of the partition
        table works is most cases, but I have seen it fail.  Don't panic.  It
        will  be  correct after you reboot the system.  In all cases, I still
        recommend rebooting the system--just to be safe.

So watch for warnings when you finally write the new table.

And here's a tip from the sfdisk man page:

   For  best results, you should always use an OS-specific
   partition table program.  For example, you should make DOS
   partitions with the DOS  FDISK  program and Linux partitions
   with the Linux sfdisk program.

So you would leave some empty space in the early cylinder part of
your drive for MS-DOS, for later.  Early, because that OS may
balk at being booted from the latter part of a big disk.

Note that some users here may prefer sfdisk, because of it's
total command line orientation, and scriptable behavior.

Now, I know you don't want that old drive to stop when you
reboot, so you would shutdown without the -p (power off) option.
On my system (RedHat), this would mean editing the last line of
the /etc/rc.d/init.d/halt script, to remove that option.  If I
remember right, you run debian, so you would have to look around
a bit, maybe, for an equivalent.  This might not be necessary if
you have set your bios, as I have, to not power off on shutdown,
or if your bios or motherboard do not behave that way.

LCR

-- 
L. C. Robinson
reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid

People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and
instability instead.  This is award winning "innovation".  Find
out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see
"CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Janina Sajka]

OK, I understand this better now. I don't know Debian particularly. Most 
of my experience is with Redhat, where the initial boot disk doesn't 
matter as much, as long as you have the more up to date CD ROMs or ISO 
images. I certainly do understand about wanting to minimize the work 
involved.

Because the best laid plans can so oft go astray, I suspect it's still 
wise to back up critical files to the extent you can. This should include 
the things that are not easily replaced--yhour data files from /home, 
anything you've spent time configuring and tweaking in /etc, certainly 
your mail spool file in /var/spool/mail.  If you have the full Debian 
install and the space to put that on your current hd, you might want to 
consider rsync to bring it up to date and then burning a new set of CD 
ROMS before undergoing to hardware work. If that's a reasonable 
possibility, it could prove worth it.

My most recent experience with something like this came last spring. I set 
out to drop a new slave hard drive into my office computer. Something went 
wrong and my old hard unexpectedly came up dead. I had no choice but to 
reinstall from scratch. For the first time in my life, after just a brief 
moment of panic, I realized that I was really OK because everything 
important was backed up. Today, the knowledge that my critical data is 
backed up gives me the confidence to play around with parted which is new 
to me. As with most things new, mistakes come along with the successes. 
But, it's no hardship because of the backups.

 On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Cheryl Homiak wrote:

> On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
> 
> simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc
> > configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less
> > experimental to me.
> I would say you are basically right, only how far would I have to go with
> the install? What I don't like is that I have to use speakup disk that are
> an older version than my present system, and I don't want to install the
> old kernel and base system etc. If I can just use the debian rescue and
> root disk to create my partitions and initialize them I don't have
> aproblem, but I'm trying to avoid having to use ppp at all and having to
> do a massive upgrade after I install.
> 
> Cheryl
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 

-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org

Will electronic books surpass print books? Read our white paper,
Surpassing Gutenberg, at http://www.afb.org/ebook.asp

Download a free sample Digital Talking Book edition of Martin Luther
King Jr's inspiring "I Have A Dream" speech at
http://www.afb.org/mlkweb.asp

Learn how to make accessible software at
http://www.afb.org/accessapp.asp

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Angelo Sonnesso]

What about just saving your configuration, and data files.
Then do a fresh install then copy your saved files on the new hard drive

If you would like since you have DSL you could send them to me at my office
and I could burn a cd for you, or send them back via ftp.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cheryl Homiak" <chomiak@chartermi.net>
To: <blinux-list@redhat.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 11:45 AM
Subject: Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive


> On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
>
> simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc
> > configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less
> > experimental to me.
> I would say you are basically right, only how far would I have to go with
> the install? What I don't like is that I have to use speakup disk that are
> an older version than my present system, and I don't want to install the
> old kernel and base system etc. If I can just use the debian rescue and
> root disk to create my partitions and initialize them I don't have
> aproblem, but I'm trying to avoid having to use ppp at all and having to
> do a massive upgrade after I install.
>
> Cheryl
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blinux-list mailing list
> Blinux-list@redhat.com
> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Brent Harding]

I really should add the option, I hate rebooting to windows to shut off. If
I type poweroff, I get full shutdown though.
At 01:34 AM 12/5/01 -0700, you wrote:
>On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Tommy Moore wrote:
>
>> Nope if you make the new partition on the second drive and copy
>> data from the first all you do is boot in with boot disk when
>> you changed hdb to hda and run lilo.  Have done this multiple
>> times and it's always worked.
>
>I agree with this outline, with a few details added.
>
>> you may need to acc [add?] lba32 to the top of lilo.conf so
>> that it'll work with all drives but once you've done that you
>> should be set to to go.
>
>This only applies to recent systems.  The lilo documentation
>says: "Use of LBA32 is recommended on all post-1998 systems" (the
>standard was adopted in 1998).  These systems must be able to
>"use the Enhanced BIOS packet calls".  Many old BIOSes can only
>boot from the first 1024 cylinders.  One solution is to make the
>first partition within that space, for a small boot partition,
>containing the /boot directory.  10 or 20 megs should be more
>than you would ever need.  Just enough for the kernels (old and
>new), and the bootloader map files, etc.  If you find that your
>BIOS can boot with the new extended standards and a recent
>version of lilo (see the lilo documentation), this is not
>necessary.  Another solution is to boot with LOADLIN instead of
>LILO.
>
>> I'd rather spend 5 minutes doing this than to spend 20 doing a reinstall.
>
>Indeed.  Once the system is working, one can do a normal upgrade.
> 
>> You can't do this on a running system though you have to do
>> this from boot and root disks.
>
>Well, you can do it on an new, unmounted drive, on a running
>system.
>
>> Just fdisk the new drive the way you like and format new partition and 
>
>And the "format" command is really a mkfs (make filesystem)
>command for your choice of filesystem types (probably mkfs.ext2).
>But you probably knew that.
>
>> then mount the drives on different mount points and then do a
>
>> cp -ap .  /new_drive
>
>> from with in the / directory of old drive and everything should
>> work. 
>
>I would add the -x option to that (same as --one-file-system, eg.
>stay on this file system), or you may have problems with the new
>mount point being recursively part of the copy -- kind of a mess.
>With the -x option, you will have to copy one partition at a
>time, for the old ones.  So the new cp command might be (after
>doing a cd to the root of the partition you are copying:
>
>cp -axp *  /new_partition_root_dir/
>
>And don't forget to edit the new /etc/fstab to reflect the new
>layout.
>
>> Remember to reboot between the format and fdisk process though.
>
>>From the fdisk man page:
>
>   A sync() and a BLKRRPART ioctl() (reread partition table from
>   disk) are performed before exiting when the partition table
>   has been updated.   Long  ago it  used  to  be necessary to
>   reboot after the use of fdisk.  I do not think this is the
>   case anymore - indeed, rebooting too quickly might cause loss
>   of not-yet-written  data.  Note  that both the kernel and the
>   disk hardware may buffer data.
>
>But then, the cfdisk man page still says:
>
> W      Write  partition  table  to disk (must enter an upper case W).  Since
>        this might destroy data on the disk, you must either confirm or  deny
>        the write by entering `yes' or `no'.  If you enter `yes', cfdisk will
>        write the partition table to disk and the tell the kernel to  re-read
>        the  partition  table from the disk.  The re-reading of the partition
>        table works is most cases, but I have seen it fail.  Don't panic.  It
>        will  be  correct after you reboot the system.  In all cases, I still
>        recommend rebooting the system--just to be safe.
>
>So watch for warnings when you finally write the new table.
>
>And here's a tip from the sfdisk man page:
>
>   For  best results, you should always use an OS-specific
>   partition table program.  For example, you should make DOS
>   partitions with the DOS  FDISK  program and Linux partitions
>   with the Linux sfdisk program.
>
>So you would leave some empty space in the early cylinder part of
>your drive for MS-DOS, for later.  Early, because that OS may
>balk at being booted from the latter part of a big disk.
>
>Note that some users here may prefer sfdisk, because of it's
>total command line orientation, and scriptable behavior.
>
>Now, I know you don't want that old drive to stop when you
>reboot, so you would shutdown without the -p (power off) option.
>On my system (RedHat), this would mean editing the last line of
>the /etc/rc.d/init.d/halt script, to remove that option.  If I
>remember right, you run debian, so you would have to look around
>a bit, maybe, for an equivalent.  This might not be necessary if
>you have set your bios, as I have, to not power off on shutdown,
>or if your bios or motherboard do not behave that way.
>
>LCR
>
>-- 
>L. C. Robinson
>reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid
>
>People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and
>instability instead.  This is award winning "innovation".  Find
>out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see
>"CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Blinux-list mailing list
>Blinux-list@redhat.com
>https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>
>

Re: transfering linux system to another hard drive

[Brent Harding]

With parted, how do I move the start of a partition back to fill
unallocated space? I realize that I got a mistake, with partitions 1 and 3,
and unallocated space between. I want to move the beginning of 3 to fill
where 2 was taken out.
At 08:24 AM 12/5/01 -0500, you wrote:
>OK, I understand this better now. I don't know Debian particularly. Most 
>of my experience is with Redhat, where the initial boot disk doesn't 
>matter as much, as long as you have the more up to date CD ROMs or ISO 
>images. I certainly do understand about wanting to minimize the work 
>involved.
>
>Because the best laid plans can so oft go astray, I suspect it's still 
>wise to back up critical files to the extent you can. This should include 
>the things that are not easily replaced--yhour data files from /home, 
>anything you've spent time configuring and tweaking in /etc, certainly 
>your mail spool file in /var/spool/mail.  If you have the full Debian 
>install and the space to put that on your current hd, you might want to 
>consider rsync to bring it up to date and then burning a new set of CD 
>ROMS before undergoing to hardware work. If that's a reasonable 
>possibility, it could prove worth it.
>
>My most recent experience with something like this came last spring. I set 
>out to drop a new slave hard drive into my office computer. Something went 
>wrong and my old hard unexpectedly came up dead. I had no choice but to 
>reinstall from scratch. For the first time in my life, after just a brief 
>moment of panic, I realized that I was really OK because everything 
>important was backed up. Today, the knowledge that my critical data is 
>backed up gives me the confidence to play around with parted which is new 
>to me. As with most things new, mistakes come along with the successes. 
>But, it's no hardship because of the backups.
>
> On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Cheryl Homiak wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Janina Sajka wrote:
>> 
>> simply install then move the data, including appropriate /etc
>> > configurations, back over. Certainly seems more secure and less
>> > experimental to me.
>> I would say you are basically right, only how far would I have to go with
>> the install? What I don't like is that I have to use speakup disk that are
>> an older version than my present system, and I don't want to install the
>> old kernel and base system etc. If I can just use the debian rescue and
>> root disk to create my partitions and initialize them I don't have
>> aproblem, but I'm trying to avoid having to use ppp at all and having to
>> do a massive upgrade after I install.
>> 
>> Cheryl
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Blinux-list mailing list
>> Blinux-list@redhat.com
>> https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>> 
>
>-- 
>	
>				Janina Sajka, Director
>				Technology Research and Development
>				Governmental Relations Group
>				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
>
>Email: janina@afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175
>
>Chair, Accessibility SIG
>Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
>http://www.openebook.org
>
>Will electronic books surpass print books? Read our white paper,
>Surpassing Gutenberg, at http://www.afb.org/ebook.asp
>
>Download a free sample Digital Talking Book edition of Martin Luther
>King Jr's inspiring "I Have A Dream" speech at
>http://www.afb.org/mlkweb.asp
>
>Learn how to make accessible software at
>http://www.afb.org/accessapp.asp
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Blinux-list mailing list
>Blinux-list@redhat.com
>https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
>
>