Kreuger Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Hey everyone, I just purchased a new and larger (I guess that's a given) hard drive to use. I was wondering how I would go about cloning an exact copy of my current hard drive to have on my newer drive so I don't have to reinstall anything. I know there are tools like Ghost For Linux but I was under the impression that you would likely need that program installed on the drive to use it? I will be using my current drive externally with my external case because the new drive is SATA (so I also need to know how to boot from a USB drive). Any tips would be helpful. If it's rather hard to do, maybe I'll just do a fresh install and copy my home directory as well as any other files I'll need but I'd prefer not to as it would take too long to reconfigure and tweak everything to my liking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richardarkless Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 so you've got linux or windows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bubblex Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 Maybe have two ways 1. Find ghost dos version and copy it to floppy disk with boot sections. But I don't know this dos version if support sata disk. 2. Use your system now, make your new disk as mirror disk of old, when it finished synchronization, move old disk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elv13 Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 cp -av /original/* /destination/ It will preserve links and permissions, so it will boot without any problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kreuger Posted April 8, 2008 Author Share Posted April 8, 2008 so you've got linux or windows? Linux1. Find ghost dos version and copy it to floppy disk with boot sections. But I don't know this dos version if support sata disk. I don't think that would work.2. Use your system now, make your new disk as mirror disk of old, when it finished synchronization, move old disk. How would I go about that?cp -av /original/* /destination/ I've done something like this before and it never preserved the permissions. Always have to modify them. Would I have to run that as root? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kyro Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 havent tried it but check http://www.partimage.org/Screenshots Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abysal Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 I would pick up a copy of Acronis True Migrate Easy. The only issue is you would need a windows PC to install and create a the bootable media. Then you simply boot from the CD and perform the image from the origianl drive to the new one, afterwards disconnect the old drive and replace with the new drive. Acronis automatically can re-size your partitions to the larger drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foub Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 so you've got linux or windows? This is the Linux section. You guess now..... I would pick up a copy of Acronis True Migrate Easy. The only issue is you would need a windows PC to install and create a the bootable media. Then you simply boot from the CD and perform the image from the origianl drive to the new one, afterwards disconnect the old drive and replace with the new drive. Acronis automatically can re-size your partitions to the larger drive. If it is an image file, like ISO, than one can still burn it to CD under Linux. I've done it several times myself with no problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bolerodan Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 cp -av /original/* /destination/It will preserve links and permissions, so it will boot without any problem. I believe you may want to try cp -pr -p i preserves the attributes and permissions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted April 8, 2008 Veteran Share Posted April 8, 2008 The -a option is the same as using -dpR http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?cp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kreuger Posted April 8, 2008 Author Share Posted April 8, 2008 Since I seem to have a few problems with my current setup anyway (though I'm unsure of it being something in Hardy) I think I might just do the fresh install and copy over what I need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elv13 Posted April 8, 2008 Share Posted April 8, 2008 cp -av work, thats all, no permissions conflict, no broken link. I did it many time, it just work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyther Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 I must also agree cp -av should do the trick, or you can do it using tar, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=35087 Only thing you would have to do after running cp -av /mnt/old/* /mnt/new is the following mount -o bind /dev /mnt/new/dev mount -t proc none /mnt/new/proc chroot /mnt/new /bin/bash grub-install /dev/sdb replace sdb with the new hard drive plus i would recommend copying from a live cd, makes life a tad easier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moustacha Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 What about DD, that will give an exact copy, MBR and all. dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb And wait while it copies everything. Of course changing the device according to the hard drive. Check first using fdisk fdisk -l Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naquis Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 I've done this many times with Windows and Linux installed on a drive. With both drives connected to the PC I boot from a parted magic cd and copy the partition I want from the old drive to the new drive and then set the partition I copied to the new drive as active/boot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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