Re: Upgrading hard drives

On Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:05:53 +0100, Darius wrote:

Before I begin, I have noticed a similar question recently on this
group, but not quite the same questions I have, so it's not 100%
duplicate.

I wish to get a bigger hard drive to replace a long-in-tooth drive.
The way my pc is organised is Windows (on a bootable partition) and
also GRUB, is on one drive, and the entire Linux OS (non-bootable
partitions) is on a second drive, which also has one FAT32 partition.
It is easy to copy the FAT32 partition, the hard drive manufacturer
software can do that, but it doesn't understand "Linux" partitions.

My Linux newbie questions are:

1. Is there any easy "bootable" software to copy exactly the
files/permissions etc. from the old drive to the new one for Linux
partitions, also graphically create new Linux partitions on the new
drive and format them?

You boot a Live CD such as the Gparted Live CD. Use partimage to copy the
entire partition and gparted to create and format partitions.


2. If there is no bootable software, how can you copy the Linux
partitions without booting the entire system (which means that files
would change)?

Boot one of the many Live CDs (or Live DVD if you prefer).


3. Does it matter if the new drive has different partition types
compared to the old drive (ie. Rieser vs Ext3)?

If you simply copy file with, e.g., cp - no. If you use a partition backup
tool like partimage, yes.


4. Does it matter that the new drive would have larger partitions then
the old one when copying the files?

With partimage, you copy to a new partition of the exact size and then
boot the Live CD and use gparted to expand the partitions.


5. Would GRUB have to be edited in some way when replacing the old
drive with the new drive? In Windows you can copy say C and D, and
just do a straight swap old for new drive and the drive letters will
still be C and D.

Don't quite understand what you're getting at. If it is a direct
replacement, no. For example: when I replaced the 40gb drive in my laptop
with a 120, I used partimage to backup the partitions to an external USB
drive - then swapped hard disks and restored them. Then resized using a
Live CD and then booted up. No sweat.



Thanks
Darius

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: redhat-list Digest, Vol 5, Issue 44
    ... > Im new to linux and want to access my two fat32 partitions in my redhat ... > just listen for calls on the localhost instead of networked or internet ...
    (RedHat)
  • Re: XP PC will not boot
    ... The smallest distro I've tried, is Damn Small Linux, at 50MB. ... and it won't boot on my computer. ... Knoppix, ... the source partitions can remain read-only while you're working. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: ongoing boot loader issues
    ... SuSE, or even if you choose to use winblows, exclusively!!!!! ... partitions and partitioning, and how different OSs treat and use ... They say Linux is stable. ... LILO and GRUB, it would appear. ...
    (alt.os.linux.suse)
  • Re: essential OS/2
    ... The whole point and main: difference between OS/2 and Linux has been the fact that programs come: complete on OS/2 and not so on Linux. ... Couldn't see the other partitions. ... When I tried a reboot, I got a "The home directory for this user seems to be missing", and had to login as root. ...
    (comp.os.os2.misc)
  • Re: My Solution to Securing Windows 98, ME Against Network Modification and Spying, using Linux.
    ... > about security and wants to run Windows is going to be using NT, 2k or XP, ... >> Modification and Spying, using Linux. ... >> partitions are desirable. ... >> a special boot loader. ...
    (microsoft.public.security)