Re: dumb cp problem...help please.

[Gerry Doris <gerry dorfam ca>]

On Sun, 2 Feb 2003, Mark Neidorff wrote:

> Well, this should be dead easy...and I've read the man & info pages, but I
> still get this problem:
> 
> I'm upgrading from 6.2 to 7.3.  I have both installed and running on
> separate HDDs on this computer.  I want to copy all of each user's files
> from the old system to the new.  I have the new drive's home directory
> mounted as /mnt/new.  So, I want to 
> cp /home/user/<all files and folders> /mnt/new/user
> 
> I used this command from either the /home directory or from the 
> /home/user directory:
> 
> #cp -rvp /home/user/.* /mnt/new/user
> 
> and what happens is below /mnt/new/user I get all of the files (and
> sub-directories)being copied from the /home directory.  
> 
> Now I know that I'll have to run cp again to get the files that are not
> "dot" files, but that's not the issue.  The problem is that I get all of
> the other user's files on the system being cp'ed into /mnt/new/user.  
> 
> Help, please!
> 
> Mark

Try using cp -ax to move the files.  You should be able to 

cp -ax /home /mnt/home

to make an exact copy of everything in /home to /home in the new drive.

-- 
Gerry

"The lyfe so short, the craft so long to learne"  Chaucer