Re: Handing over boot sequence from one drive to another
[This message has also been posted to linux.debian.user.]
In article <7Iram-u8-31@gated-at.bofh.it>, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 28, 2007 at 12:54:46PM +0100, MeneM wrote:
>> Could anyone tell me how to copy my current debian installation to a
>> different external iomega jazz drive,
I recently copied an etch install to a new drive.
I had root, swap, /usr, and /var on their own partitions.
Copied each to empty file systems on the new drive.
Copying root is tricky because you don't want to
copy /proc or /sys or /tmp, you want empty mount
points with the same ownership and permissions.
If you're new to Linux, a new install would be easier.
>> and be able to boot from it in case of emergency?
That depends on whether the external drive can
be booted by BIOS. If not, the easiest thing would
be to leave a copy of /boot on the old drive,
and just make an entry in /boot/grub/menu.lst
that knows where the new root is.
Nobody said your /boot directory has to be on
the same drive as your system.
I installed etch on an old system where the
BIOS couldn't recognize a 10 GB drive.
I had an old 540 MB drive lying around and
put /boot on that. BIOS doesn't know there
is a 120 GB drive next to it, and doesn't care.
I suppose you could put /boot on a CD.
>> I'm figuring; reading some articles after some merry googling, that I
>> need to copy /boot /etc /usr/sbin /usr/bin /sbin /dev and a bit of /usr
>> to it and then make it bootable with fdisk right?
You forgot to make mount points for /proc and /sys and
an empty /tmp directory. You forgot /var/.
See how this is not a good idea?
"Bootable" means there is an MBR where BIOS can see it,
that points to a /boot directory that BIOS can see.
Linux does not care about the boot flag in the
partition table.
>> You see I'm trying to go down this route, but I cannot get the jaz drive
>> to boot. There's no BIOS option for it. So I have to boot off CD or
>> something and then hand the boot process over to the jaz drive. but _how_?
You need GRUB to be able to see vmlinuz, initrd,
and grub/menu.lst. But only stage 1 needs BIOS.
Make a boot floppy. When it works, put an
El Torito boot "catalog" on it and burn it to a CD.
Floppies go bad.
> A pre-requisite to booting the kernel on the jazz drive is that the jazz
> drive be bootable.
OP said that's not an option. Old BIOS.
> So what __will__ your bios boot?
>
> Some suggestions for testing.
>
> Get the hd-media kernel and initrd.gz from Etch.
What's an "hd-media kernel?" Package search doesn't see it.
> Put the hd-media directory on it.
What's an "hd-media directory"? My etch install doesn't
have that.
Cameron
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