Rsync to copy a File Generator Server to a virtual machine

Hi all!!
i have been trying "Rsync" to copy all the file generator server to a virtual machine.
i use a centos distribution and i'm getting issues to accomplish that.
where i have problems is at copying the "/etc", because there are some critical files. at the time to copy i tried to exclude the following files inside /etc:
fstab, group, services, protocols, grub.conf, /network & /network-scripts folder, passwd, shadow.
so if after using rsync /etc root""ip:/ -a -v --exclude ....
i can't connect to my virtual machine.
before trying to copy a file generator server i copied my test server to a virtual machine using rsync excluding the files from /etc mentioned previously and the VM worked fine, but if i try to do the same with the file generator server i get stuck.
the VM is centos5.2 64bits, my colleagues told me that it doesn't matter if it has different versions, so .... i don't know what else to do.
thanks !!

You are copying from //host1/etc to //host2/etc? If so, then that is your problem since it will overright things like your network settings, file mounts (fstab), and such. You need to back the data to an alternative sub-directory tree.

hi rubberman.
i copied all my test server that has a postgres, php, apache, zabbix and other programs to a virtual machine using rsync copiing all the files except, fstab, the folder network-scripts, network , group, services, grub.conf, protocols and worked all fine i could work with it as it was my test server but with other ip, thats why i'm asking this, because if i could do it with a test server why i can't do it with another machine¿?
the thing i did last week is copied host1/etc to host2/etc-host1 but is not what i want.
tthanks anyway
so what i mean is possible

It should be possible, but without being able to look at the actual systems/networks in question, I can't answer why it is working for a virtual server, but not a physical one. Have you tried Clonezilla?

hi rubberman
thanks for the reply i will take a look at clonezilla, i haven't tried it yet.
thanks