moving the root partition (esp. /dev)

[John Paul Lorenti <newser@its.barnard.columbia.edu>]

I'm trying to move all the files in my root partition to a different
disk parition. I had no problems using cp -ar to do this with the /usr
tree, but /dev is giving me problems. I can't seem to copy the devices
in /dev. I get messages like "cp: /dev/sdh3: Operation not supported by
device". MAKEDEV doesn't seem to create all the devices, or set the
proper file ownerships. Is there anyway to do this other than
re-creating the hundreds of them by hand?

Thanks,

John Paul