Quoting Cam Ellison ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > Sorry this is a bit long, but I'm still confused... > > On Fri, 18 Aug 2000 13:20:11 -0500, Brian E. Ermovick wrote: > > >I've remapped partitions or even upgraded across drives just by using > >cp - mke2fs the new drive (assuming the partition is large enough to > >hold all the data), then: > > > >mount /dev/hdxx /mnt > >mkdir /mnt/mnt > >mkdir /proc/mnt > > > >cp -av /bin /mnt > >cp -av /sbin /mnt > >cp -av /usr /mnt > >cp -av /home /mnt > >cp -av /dev /mnt > > Let me get this straight..
I'm not sure why you attached your comment to this message, as it doesn't seem to me a good way of doing the task that you want to do. (Admittedly, the original poster, bill, was rather ambiguous about what he wanted to do.) > I am in the position of having to transfer my entire system to a new > drive. I will have to mount it initially as hdc. I'm going to assume that you have your old system spread over multiple partitions and you want to keep it that way. > So I should mke2fs, and create swap, root, usr, and var partitions on > the new drive (I assume under new names, like /newswap), as: Yes, but you don't need new names. When you mke2fs them, they are just /dev/hdcX and have no name. > hdc2 becomes root > hdc3 becomes swap > hdc4 becomes usr > hdc5 becomes var > hdc6 (maybe) becomes something else Well, the numbers are odd looking. What's in partition 1? It has to be an extended partition to contain partitions 5 upwards. Personally, in the absence of another OS, I'd have hdc1 swap hdc2 / hdc3 /usr hdc4 /foo (which contains /foo/var /foo/tmp and /foo/home) or you might have, say, hdc1 swap hdc2 / hdc3 /usr hdc4 extended containing: hdc5 /var hdc6 /tmp hdc7 /home but you have to choose your own scheme according to your prejudices. I now use a 50--60MB / partition where the biggies are split off. Now let's do the copying. First the root partition. Assume it's going to be on hdc2, as in all the examples above. mount /dev/hdc2 /mnt cd / find -xdev | cpio -damp /mnt umount /mnt That copies everything in your present / partition into the new one, but only the files within the partition, not any directory trees like /usr that have been mounted separately. To do another partition, like /usr : mount /dev/hdc3 /mnt cd /usr find -xdev | cpio -damp /mnt umount /mnt and the same thing for other partitions. At the end, you need to check your new /etc/fstab with mount /dev/hdc2 /mnt edit /mnt/etc/fstab and ditto for lilo. If you're going to (a) boot from a floppy and (b) remove the old disk or swap the IDE cables round, then there's no need to change a<->c as you'll always be booting into hda. You only need to correct any changed partition numbers. When you boot the new disk from a floppy, check the /etc/lilo.conf and rerun lilo. Then see if it boots correctly. If you have problems understanding this, do post your existing partioning scheme (/etc/fstab will do nicely) and your intended one. If you're splitting or merging partitons, you have to do certain things slightly differently, and I can hardly post every detail of every instance. Cheers, -- Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +44 1908 653 739 Fax: +44 1908 655 151 Snail: David Wright, Earth Science Dept., Milton Keynes, England, MK7 6AA Disclaimer: These addresses are only for reaching me, and do not signify official stationery. Views expressed here are either my own or plagiarised.