On 07/31/2010 03:21 PM, Jussi Lehtola wrote: > On Sat, 2010-07-31 at 12:59 -0500, Steven Stern wrote: >> According to the SMART stats, the single drive in my Fedora server is >> starting to fail. Rather than backup, do a clean install, and rebuild, >> I'd like to try to clone the existing drive to a new one, then swap in >> the new one. >> >> What are the restrictions on doing this and the best way to accomplish >> it? I have the Clonezilla Live CD that I use for backup. Will that do >> it? >> >> Or will a straight dd do it? >> add new drive as PATA slave /dev/sdb >> dd -if /dev/sda -of /dev/sdb >> remove /dev/sda >> change the jumpers on /dev/sdb to match what was /dev/sda >> reboot >> >> In the dd procedure, I'm not sure what to do if sdb is larger than sda. > > What I normally do is boot the system e.g. with the Fedora install CD in > rescue mode, which automatically mounts the old system, and then I > > 1. partition new drive > 2. format partitions on new drive > 3. mount new filesystem tree in e.g. /mnt/newroot > 4. run > # rsync -au /mnt/sysimage/ /mnt/newroot/ > 5. edit fstab in new etc to reflect new partitions > 6. install grub on new drive > 7. unmount and reboot > > This way you can easily change the sizes of partitions and also their > file systems, which can be handy if you want to take advantage of new > file system features. And, you only copy the data, not empty space (I > don't think dd does this, although smarter tools should do it). > > Also, if you're running SELinux run > # touch /mnt/newroot/.autorelabel > before rebooting, since rsync doesn't preserve security contexts.. Cool. Thanks. -- -- Steve -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines