Hi Andrew, You need to be root on your machine to do this.
Make two partitions on the new drive using cfdisk /dev/<drive> Then make a filesystem on each partition. Stick to the tried-and-tested ext2, or go for one of the new journalling ones like ext3 or reiserfs, if you're running a kernel recent enough to support them or can compile one that does. E.g. mke2fs /dev/<partition> Then mount the first partition e.g. under /mnt mount /dev/<partition> /mnt And transfer the data using tar: tar cplf - -C / var | tar xvf - -C /mnt Unmount the partition umount /mnt Mount the other one and do the same thing for /usr: mount /dev/<partition> tar cplf - -C / usr | tar xvf - -C /mnt umount /mnt Make sure you type the tar commands exactly as above, you don't want to go dropping the entire copnmtents of /var or /usr (or even / if you v=get it wrong) in the wrong place! Edit /etc/fstab and either add lines for /usr and /var, or change existing ones, to mount your new filesystems instead of the old ones. Here's an example: --- fstab excerpt --- /dev/sdb6 /usr ext2 rw 0 2 /dev/sdb7 /var ext2 rw 0 2 --- end fstab excerpt --- Then go to single user mode: telinit S Unmount /usr and /var: umount /usr umount /var Mount all partitions using your new fstab: mount -a Check that everything is mounted where it should be: mount And go back to your usual runlevel (usually 2 on Debian): telinit 2 That's it. Note that if /usr and /var were originally part of your root filesystem, the data will still be there but the new filesystem will be mounted on the top level directory so you won't see it. After you've successfully transferred /usr and /var out of the root filesystem, you can reclaim the space by going to single user mode, unmounting /usr and /var, and doing the following: rm -rvf /var rm -rvf /usr mkdir /var mkdir /usr Be VERY careful that /usr and /var are NOT mounted when you do this! Also note, a space or a slash in the wrong place in either of the above commands can wreck your system completely! Good luck, | George Karaolides Linustech Advanced Solutions, | | tel: +357 22 55 61 29 86 Ifigenias Street, 3rd Floor, | | web: www.linustech.com.cy Strovolos, Nicosia CY 2003, | | email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Republic of Cyprus. | On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Andrew Stephen wrote: > Hi > > My /var and /usr partitions have just run out of space and I was wondering > what is the best way to copy them to a new drive that has just been > installed. > > Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. > > Regards, > Andrew > > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >