Re: A linux alternative to the "ghost" programs?

From: Cubic (cubic_at_fjomp.com)
Date: 06/30/04 

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 01:14:01 +0200

Ay ay ay, seems like I have stumbled into elitist or "crack down the
n00bs" country. I'd just like to say that the reason I don't know what
you're asking me, is because I come from a windows envirnoment and I'm
slowly easing my way into using linux. yes, I'm a "luser", but I'm willing
to learn. Even through your a bit "offensive" way of answering, I got a
bit of the info I wanted, so I'll thank you for that. :)

On Wed, 30 Jun
2004 00:28:28 +0200, P.T. Breuer wrote:

> Cubic <cubic@fjomp.com> wrote:
>> I'm looking for an alternative to the "ghost" programs, to make a mirror
>> image of my current drive on a larger drive that I'm planning to buy
>> really soon.
>
> And what exactly is wrong with "cp"? Man cp.
>
>> The entire problem I have is, I want four partitions(one
>> win98 partition, one ext2 and an extended partition containing one swap
>> partition and another ext2) over to the other drive(most probably 200
>> gigs in size),
>
> SO what's the problem?
>
>> with the bootrecord(I have BootMagic running on the MBR and
>
> You can't copy bootrecords just like that! They don't "make sense" out
> of their context. You'll have to rewrite the bootrecord the way you
> want it on the new medium. Nobody knows for example if you want the new
> master boot record to point to the old partition records, or to the new
> ones. Rerun lilo.
That was what I was wondering, mostly. If there existed a way of
preserving the bootrecord of the drive. Well, I had the lilo part down, I
will just have to boot into windows with a partition-magic resque disk or
something(Oh, I know I could use knoppix or something, but I'd rather keep
Bootmgic, I'm a luser, all I can say)

>
>> lilo running on the root ext2 drive) and all, since the current drive(30
>> gig)is to be used elsewhere. So basically, I want the 200 gig to be a
>> mirror image of the 30 gig after the operation.
>
> Well, it can't be. Sure, the file systems can be mirrors, but not the
> disks. They're not the same size.
>
>> I know that this'll make
>> for 170 gig to be unused, but I'll just add/resize partitions with a
>
> Oh - you want equal partitions! Why didn't you say so? And what is your
> problem with cp? Or tar? Or rsync? Or even kernel soft raid1?
Heh, reason why I asked was to know the names to some such programs, and
you gave them to me. Of course, not in the friendliest of ways ;)
Thank you again.
>
>> I've heard talk about a dd program that I could use like "dd
>> if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb"
>
> That would copy all of one disk to another. You don't want that. And
> it's not different from "cp /dev/hda /dev/hdb"!
>
>> ( I have also veryfied that I have it installed).
>
> Is that some kind of surprise? dd has been a basic unix utility for the
> last 30 years.
I didn't know that.
>
>> Is it really
>> that easy?
>
> What is wrong with using cp?
>
>> Or do I have to add more options and lots of crazyness? Do you
>
> Whatever you like. dd is only a version of cp in which you can control
> the transfer blocksize, and other minor things!
>
>> know of any alternative, easier to use(possibly safer) programms?
>
> What drugs are you on? Why don't you just make a filesystem on your
> target partition, and copy "cp -a") one file system to another? What's
> all this fuss about?
>
> Peter
Mostly, the fuss comes from me not knowing the full potentional of certain
commands, like the oh-so holy cp command. I mean, I've read the man page
at least three times, I still didn't suspect you could do something like
"cp -a /dev/hda /dev/hdb". Then again, it might have been the molded
cheeze doodles I had for breakfast. Take your choice =)

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