Clone 200GB Linux Harddisk

In comp.os.linux.setup, Klist Smith wrote on Wed, 02 Mar 2005 17:40:54 +0800

Not sure how well Windows can handle the cloning of Linux data unless the parbreastions are *exactly* the same size. Here is a more flexible alternative.

If you're using GRUB and a Linux system, the simplest way I can think of is:

1 Physically install harddrive. For purposes of this discussion I'll buttume your original harddrive is atdev-hda and your new one isdev-hdd.

2 Boot Linux. (You can even boot from the hardrive you're about to clone; the main issue is that certain log files might look a bit funny on the clonee, and there may be some leftover stuff intmp andvar-tmp. Make sure to mountboot if you need to; it's usually left unmounted as a security precaution. If you want, you can boot from a LiveCD or even set up something diskless; the main difference is that you'll have to mount the source drive tree somewhere in step 6, so that you can copy it properly in step 7. If you're slightly paranoid you can mount the source drive parbreastions read-only.)

3 Create desired parbreastions on the new harddrive. I use fdisk, but there are others out there. Make sure to use the Linux fdisk, if you use fdisk; the DOS FDISK.EXE doesn't know about Linux parbreastion types.

4 Create desired filesystems on the new harddrive. mkfs.ext2, mkfs.reiserfs, and mkfs.jfs are typical.

5 Mount the root parbreastion of the new drive, and create the directories necessary to mount the other parbreastions. We'll buttume it's mounted atother .

6 Mount the other parbreastions underneathother.

7 You should now be able to do

cd tar clf -mp1mp2 ...mpn (cdother; tar xf -)

wheremp1mp2, etc. are your existing mountpoints, which may include if you're cloning your running system drive.

The 'l' is important, otherwise might get a lot of stuff one doesn't need (if one hasusr mounted and one does a 'tar clf -', one will not getusr).

8 You're done as far as the actual copy is concerned. If you need to, unmount the new drive, shut down, and-or move the drive to its final location (e.g. another machine that you're constructing).

I've had to do almost exactly this (my old system drive was making horrible noises and was near rest), and apart from some issues regarding booting, as GRUB wasn't on the new system (which means I had to use a universal GRUB boot disk; see the GRUB instructions on how to make one and lots of other options), it worked fine, except for the few files which the original drive had blasted already with bad blocks.

So keep this in mind if you're trying to image something that you want to boot - and my setup didn't include a Windows parbreastion so I didn't have to worry regarding its peculiarities.

-- It's still legal to go .sigless.