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Re: Recopying /home/myusername and getting it to work by copy and paste



On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:05:24 +0200, Merciadri Luca wrote:

> I've got a backup of /home on some external HDD. Let us consider that
> one of my internal HDDs, more precisely the one containing /home, fails.
> I then need to replace it. If I manage to make the external HDD
> internal, and change /etc/fstab consequently, would it work without any
> issues? 

Yes, provided the copy/paste operation is properly done and file 
permissions are restored "as is". For these tasks I would avoid GUI tools 
(such Nautilus or another graphical file browser) and proceed with 
command line or using Midnight Commander.

> When should I change /etc/fstab? 

When you want. 

If the system is still usable and you can login and "/home" is under a 
separate partition and mounted at boot, you can copy the backed up into 
the new disk, ensure the perms are okay, edit the "/etc/fstab" 
accordingly and reboot.

If the system is unbootable by now, you can then apply the changes from a 
LiveCD.

> Would the path to the `new internal HDD' (the one which was precedently
> external) be the same as the path to the old one (the one that failed)?

That's irrelevant as you should be using UUID/ID/LABEL/PATH to name the 
new device in fstab >;-)

Tip: never delete things that you can simply "comment out" (#) them, that 
way you always retain the old entries for future references.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón


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