Re: [gentoo-user] Moving root filesystem to a new partition

[Alan E. Davis]

I bind mounted / then copied /dev to the new partition.  This was advice
given earlier, the first time it happened to me: I finally found an earlier
replay to a similar request from me.  All is now well.

Thank you for the advice.

Alan

On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote:

> Francisco Ares wrote:
>
>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com <mailto:
>> rdalek1967@×××××.com>> wrote:
>>
>>    Alan E. Davis wrote:
>>
>>        Can someone tell me what steps are necessary to move the /
>>        filesystem to a new partition?  I recall someone helping me
>>        with this before, but cannot find the email.  The oldest of
>>        three drives on my system had my / partition, /dev/sdc1.  One
>>        day recently, that partition became inaccessable.  After
>>        quickly installing Ubuntu on a different drive, that root
>>        partition eventually showed up again.
>>        So I've been able to boot Gentoo again off the separate /boot
>>        partition on /dev/sda1.  I need to move that / partition.  I
>>        have several other partitions mounted off this one, mainly as
>>        /usr and maybe /usr/local/, and some storage partitions
>>        mounted to my home directory.
>>        I copied the root (/) partition with the new partition at
>>        /dev/sdb5 mounted as /newroot, using
>>           # cp -ax / /newroot
>>
>>        I checked that /proc, /dev, and /sys are there, and empty.  I
>>        recall there are some other steps necessary.  I changed
>>        /etc/fstab, and the grub2 grub.cfg from ubuntu, the entry for
>>        this kernel.  The boot stalls at a certain point.          May I
>> ask what steps are necessary to do this?
>>
>>        Thank you,
>>
>>        Alan Davis
>>
>>
>>    I have done this in the past.  I usually boot the CD, make mount
>>    points for old and new, then mount the old and new that I want to
>>    copy.  Then I do a cp -av /path/to/old /path/to/new/ and let it
>>    copy.  This can take quite a bit of time tho.  It seems those
>>    little bitty files take the longest.  Maybe omitting the -v option
>>    would help on that?
>>
>>    Once you get it copied over, edit your fstab file as needed on the
>>    new side and install the bootloader as well.  After that, it
>>    usually just works.
>>
>>    Dale
>>
>>    :-)  :-)
>>    P. S.  Sorry for not including some fancy tarball stuff.  ;-)
>>
>>
>>
>> Well, as far as I know one would like to edit the bootloader configuration
>> as well, so as to reflect the new root directory.
>>
>> Or has anyone written this before and I didn't notice? ;-)
>>
>> Francisco
>>
>> --
>> "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you
>> and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have one
>> idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." -
>> George Bernard Shaw
>>
>
> If it needs to be then sure.  I usually move things file wise with cp then
> move things physically in the case as well.  My OS is always on hda.  The
> grub config is on hda1 and grub bootloader is on the MBR of hda as well.
>  So, I don't have to edit grub on mine.  I do boot once by using the edit
> feature of grub, just to make sure before I move things physically.
>
> You do have to plan these things tho.  Wouldn't hurt to write down on paper
> where everything is and don't erase anything until you are sure your ducks
> are in a row.  Maybe even write notes on the drive with a post it note.
>  Dale
>
> :-)  :-)
>
>