[arch-general] how to migrate installs between hard drives?

Rafa Griman rafagriman at gmail.com
Sun Jul 26 15:58:27 EDT 2009


Hi :)

On Sunday 26 July 2009 20:34:12 Van de Velde Erwin wrote:
> Another option is using rsync to copy all files to the other disk. This can
> be done with a temporary server storage if necessary.  If you use the -a
> switch, it keeps permissions intact and works perfectly for Linux, not for
> Windows, but who uses that anyway? ;)


I agree. I use rsync to migrate between drives. Haven't had any problems yet. 
As Erwin wrote, you can use the -a switch and also the -v and --progress.

I do this booting with a LiveCD/USB image -> rsync to the temp server/system -
> rsync back.

Once you rsync back to your laptop with the new drive. Boot with the 
LiveCD/USB image and check things like fstab or /boot/grub/menu.lst because 
the ID will have changed. Maybe you have to boot a couple of times with the 
LiveCD/USB image because you forgot to edit this or that file.

HTH

   Rafa


> On Sunday 26 July 2009, Nergar wrote:
> > I think clonezilla could help you here.
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 1:12 PM, Dan McGee <dpmcgee at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 1:06 PM, Will Siddall<will.siddall at gmail.com>
> > >
> > > wrote:
> > > > I know this isn't particularly an arch question, but I know Arch
> > > > people are better off to ask then most.
> > > >
> > > > I'm in the process of upgrading my hard drive in my laptop but with
> > > > the amounts of customizations I've done to my setup, I don't want to
> > > > have to set it all up again.
> > > >
> > > > I know about running dd to copy the partition information, but the
> > > > problem with that is that it also copies that partition information
> > > > over.  So, if I copy my root partition that started as a 40G
> > > > partition with 90% used and now I have a 60G parition, the used
> > > > portion will be kept at 90% so, it'll show something like 50G of
> > > > data... which doesn't make sense.
> > >
> > > What about a dd followed by using parted/gparted or whatever to resize
> > > things as necessary? They have a good LiveCD too that you should be
> > > able to use to get things copied and then resized.
> > >
> > > I think gparted even has built in support for copying partitions; not
> > > sure if it can do it across drives.
> > >
> > > -Dan

-- 
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