RE: Replacing hda - Easiest Way?
> From: Scarletdown [mailto:scarletdown@gmail.com]
>
> I'm going to be upgrading my primary hard drive (80GB) with a new 500GB
> drive today. The old drive has 7 assorted partitions on it:
>
> /dev/hda1 - /
> /dev/hda5 - /tmp
> /dev/hda6 - /root
> /dev/hda7 - /opt
> /dev/hda8 - /var
> /dev/hda9 - /usr
> /dev/hda10 - /workspace
>
> So, what would be the easiest way to transfer everything from the old
> drive to the new one? I remember from previous experience that just
> doing a straight up copy from one to the other didn't work. I need to
> copy and
> 1: keep all permissions intact
> 2: Copy my boot loader from the old drive to the new one
> (unfortunately, I can't remember if GRUB went on the mbr or on the boot
> record of the first partition)
>
There have been some good suggestions, but none that I would really consider "the Easy way". I don't know your level of experience, but for me "the Easy Way" is the one that can be done by almost anyone without tons of technical documentation.
Here is what I have done in the past that worked perfect for me:
1) Boot system off of Knoppix (or any other live CD with the following tools).
2) Use whatever partition manager you prefer to create your partitions on the new drive (QTparted, Gparted, fdisk, ect).
3) Use PartImage to copy the partitions over. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PartImage
4) Mount new hard drive and ensure mount points are correct (meaning if old drive is hda and new drive is sda, change accordingly).
5) Shutdown, remove old harddrive, boot into new drive!
Done!
I have been using PartImage for years and have not had a problem with it (in fact it has saved my bacon more then once!). It is also really easy to use; I would tell/show the interns this method once and then they could go off and duplicate it without problem. If you understand enough of the basics on what you are trying to do (copy partitions), you understand enough to use PartImage. Hence why I consider this one of the best methods for copying partitions.
Of course this is just my 2 cents from my experience, so please do your research and /always have a backup/!
Have fun!
~S~
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