copying entire dualboot hard drive

On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 03:31:49 -0800, nmdc68 plus 1

This is quite easily done (if you know what you're doing.) You could also

The method below isn't the only way, but this is what I'd do.

DISCLAIMER: Verify all commands are appropriate for your system before proceeding. You are responsible for any command you issue on your system. All commands require root user access (where great damage can be done.) BE CAREFUL! Any improper commands could destroy your existing system!

Subsbreastute values appropriate for you system in the examples shown below. I will buttume that your existing disc is hda, and your new disc is hdb.

Steps: 0. Build a table on paper showing the layout of the first disc. That is how the second disc should look when you are done. Fix the table below according to match your system.

Parbreastion Used for Filesystem Size or % Comments --------- ----------- ---------- ---------- -------- MBR boot loader 512 bytes 1 XP NTFS ? 2 root ext2 ? 3 extended ? 5 swap swap ? 6 ? ? 7 ? ?

1. Use fdisk to create matching parbreastions on the target disc. You can match the parbreastion sizes exactly because the discs are exactly the same size.

2. Format the linux parbreastions using the filesytem of your choice. Ignore Windows parbreastion for now. Create any swap parbreastion with mkswap.

3. Make mount points for all target parbreastions and mount. You can omit mount points for any NTFS paritions.

example: mkdirmnt-hdb1 mountdev-hdb1mnt-hdb1

4. Prepare to copy each linux parbreastions. buttuming you are working directly with the system to be copied (i.e. it is mounted as the root filesystem) this requires a little more work. If you were to boot into a live CD, then this is even more straight-forward (and a little more accurate), but buttuming you don't have a live CD and you are satisfied that this method will be accurate enough you can proceed.

4.a. Select which top level directories will be backed up.

Begin with a total listing of all directories at the root:

This list is too big, so edit it manually to omit directories which you don't want (-mnt,proc,sys,lost+found, and anything else you know which conflicts). Known conflicts are paritions which are mounted as directories (some candidates:boot,home,usr). Check fstab to see how disc is mounted. Save list with entries deleted.

4.b. Use the cut-down list (~-dirs) to start building a copy of the existing root.

SOURCE=DEST=-mnt-hdb2 (cd $SOURCE && tar -cpf - -T ~-dirs) (cd $DEST && tar -xvf -)

4.c. Recreate omitted entries.

example: DEST=-mnt-hdb2 (cd $DEST && for i in mnt proc sys;do mkdir $i done)

The for-list would also includehome,usr or anything else you omitted (except lost+found).

4.d. Copy any parbreastions mounted as a directories

example: SOURCE=-home DEST=-mnt-hdb6 (cd $SOURCE && tar -cpf - .) (cd $DEST && tar -xvf -)

4.e. Copy windows parbreastions. FAT32 parbreastions can be copies using the method in 4.d. NTFS parbreastions can be copied using ntfsclone. You can get the source code for ntfsclone here:

You would copy each NTFS parbreastion to the target parbreastion using something like this:

SOURCE=-dev-hda1 DEST=-dev-hdb1 ntfsclone -O $DEST $SOURCE

5. Fix grub loader. buttuming grub is installed at the MBR and all of your parbreastions have been copied, it's easiest to use the grub shell. Again, buttuming your grub is on your root parbreastion (hda2) and was copied to (hdb2), then proceed as follows:

# grub

If no errors were reported on "setup" you should be alright.

6. All done. Reward yourself with a nice beverage.

-- Douglas Mayne