Upgrade Hard Drive

[jdow]

From: "James Kosin" <jkosin at beta.intcomgrp.com>
Sent: Wednesday, 2008, January 09 11:16


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> Tom Spec 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?
> |
> | Thanks for any feedback,
> | Tom
> |
> |
> Tom,
> 
> This will ONLY work if both drives are the SAME (IDENTICAL) in size.  
> Check the drives geometry to be sure they are.
> 
> (a)   Yes, it looks to be the correct procedure.
> (b)   Boot the rescue CD.  If any part of the OS is loaded off the 
> current HD, you run the risk of problems and not having a boot-able new 
> drive.
> (c)   Depends on the boot loader you are using.  Lilo, Grub, etc.
> (d)   You should be able to leave the old drive in; as long as you make 
> sure you swap the master boot-able drive in the BIOS.
> 
> Good Luck,
> James

That's not completely accurate, James.

When I upgrade the disk it is at intervals such that it's cheapest to
go to a larger disk. That leaves the disk heads and sectors/track
parameters unchanged. (I do check that to be sure.) If that is the
case I simply dd the smaller disk to the larger disk. Then I run fdisk
to partition the new space. Then I create mount points for the new
partitions. Then I edit the new disk's fstab to match the new partitions.
Finally I remove the old disk, move the new disk to the master position
on the cable, and fire up the machine.

I usually link in the new space on the disk as data storage. I create
directories and link them to overfull directories in /usr, /home,
or /var. I use the rest for storing the next distro's DVD images and
for backups, since I usually have two disks. I back up critical
configuration data and user created data. The rest is restorable from
original media.

{^_^}   Joanne