Re: [gentoo-user] Replacing main harddisk

[Paul]

Well I have carried out the procedure outlined in your message, but I have had 
some problems.
When booting the new disc it always failed with a reiserfs problem (I once 
rebuilt the tree), after 3 attempts I still had errors so I formated the 
partition with ext2, copied all the files and rebooted.  IT WORKED.

The only error I have detected is during boot I get a warning "unable to open 
an initial console", the screen freezes until x is started.
This doesn't seem to be a big problem but I would like to fix it -- any 
ideas????

thanks for all who helped
Paul

On Friday 16 Sep 2005 16:33, Michael Kintzios wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Paul [mailto:gentoo@××××××××××××.com]
> > Sent: 16 September 2005 15:23
> > To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
> > Subject: [gentoo-user] Replacing main harddisk
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > My main harddisk is starting to go, making awful noise and
> > causing the
> > computer to freeze.
> > I have another spare disk and I wondered if somebody would
> > list out the
> > procedure I need to follow to create and format the
> > partitions and to copy
> > all of the faulty disk contents. Then how to boot from the new disk.
> > The new disk will need the following partitions:-
> > /boot		ext2
> > /swap
> > /		reiserfs
>
> 1. Using the dd command or a cloning software derivative:
> If the new disk is *exactly* the same size like the old one, then using
> the dd command you can basically clone your failing disk, including MBR
> and all partitions, including swap!, bit by bit:
> =========================
> dd if=/dev/hda  of=/dev/hdb
> =========================
>
> On the other hand, if the new drive is larger then you will need to
> partition it, exactly like the old one.  On the new drive, create the
> same entries you find with fdisk for your old drive:  # fdisk -l
> /dev/hda
>
> Also, don't forget to clone the MBR:
> =========================
> dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb  bs=446 count=1
> =========================
> If you also want to clone the partition table (as opposed to writing one
> afresh with fdisk) then increase the bs=446 to 512.
>
> 2. Using tar
> If at the same time you want to alter the partition sizes on the new
> drive then you can use the tar command, for each partition except for
> swap.  Besides creating partitions of a preferred size on the new drive,
> you will also need to mkfs for each partition.  Still have to use dd to
> clone the MBR.
> =========================
> # mkdir -p /mnt/new_boot
> # mount /dev/hdb1 /mnt/new_boot
> # cd /boot
> # tar lcpf - .|(cd /mnt/new_boot; tar xpvf -)
> =========================
> Repeat for / and also use tar -d (check $ man tar) to verify that the
> directories were copied over without any mishaps.  Personally I prefer
> tar because it is faster, it defragments the drive's contents and can
> verify that the new directory was not corrupted in the tarring/untarring
> process.
>
> 3. There's a number of backup apps out there which can do more or less
> the same using a different front end; e.g. partimage.
>
> Good luck.
> --
> Regards,
> Mick

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