On Jan 9, 2008 2:07 PM, Tom Spec <samag70-ignore@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > > I am planning to move from one HD to another I need a bit of feedback. I am > partitioned as follows: > > sda1 /boot (Linux Partition) 256M > sda2 LVM PV (Linux LVM Partition) 20G > > I was planning to..... > > 1) attach the new HD > 2) boot to a rescue CD > 3) partition the new HD exactly how the old one is > 4) dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb1 > 5) dd if=/dev/sda2 of=/dev/sdb2 > 6) make the new HD bootable > 7) disconnect the old HD > 8) boot > > My questions... > > - Is this basically the right procedure? > - Do I need to boot to the rescue CD or would single user (or emergency) > mode be good enough (in step 2)? > - Exactly what steps are required to "make the new HD bootable"? > - Is there a way for me to make the old hd "unbootable" so I can leave it > in, but make sure it's the new one that boots? I have done this a couple of times but not with LVM partitions, just regular ones but the drive did contain a Windows partition. A few tips: - in your dd commands, use the blocksize (bs=) parameter also since it will speed up the process *a lot*. I usually set it to bs=8M since that is the typical size of a HDs cache memory. - you can skip the whole making the exact same partition step and making things bootable just by using the whole drive device rather than the separate partition devices (i.e. if=dev/sda of=/dev/sdb) since the partition table and MBR will get mirrored over in the first 1024 bytes on the drive - quadruple check the if= and of= targets ... then check them again ... there is no quicker way of hosing all your data than getting those reversed. - don't try to boot to one of the drives with both drives in the machine ... bad things will happen with identical drive/LVM labels. Once you have done the mirror, take the old drive out, put the new drive in its place and then boot. Once everything is OK and a fsck is fine, you can boot to a CD and change all the labels on the old drive to make sure they don't conflict when you mount them . From the CD you can non-destructively resize the new partitions to take up more space on the new drive (as I am assuming that is why you are moving to a new drive). Good luck. /Mike
