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

[Will Siddall]

Thanks everyone for their suggestions.  I'm really tempted to give
each of these methods a try.  For the time being, I did get it
finished.  Without having to take all the hardware apart, I just made
a clean base install of arch onto the disk and use the livecd, mounted
the iso and copied everything over.
I'm up and running, but whenever this happens again, I'll be sure to
give your suggestions a try (and at least it's documented).

Thanks so much.
Will

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 4:58 PM, Rafa Griman<rafagriman at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>
> --
> "We cannot treat computers as Humans. Computers need love."
>
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> rgriman at jabberes.org
>