dd copy entire HD. And the boot sector?

[oxy]

Hi all,
i bought a larger ATA HD for my laptop and thought about doing a
dd from old to new HD and save much work. My question is:

what about the boot sector?

Would a dd be possible if i connect the new HD through an external HD
case with USB to the computer?

What tips can u guys give me about that?

Thanx a lot ...

[iwanabeguru]

dd don't suitable for moving the system to a larger hdd .
You can only copy equal sized partitions with dd.

If you have only one partition for everything i suggest you copy the old partition with cp

Make a partition on the new hdd
mount the new hdd for example
mount /mnt/newhdd
than

copy everything from oldhdd to newhdd if you are using your current system to move your system to another hdd , don't copy /dev /proc only
create /dev and /proc on newhdd

mkdir /mnt/newhdd/dev
mkdir /mnt/newhdd/proc

now you must reinstall the bootloader

mount --bind /dev /mnt/newhdd/dev
mount -t proc /mnt/newhdd/proc

chroot to newhdd
chroot /mnt/newhdd  

now you are in you system

install bootloader.

Reboot with your new disk

done.

[jledhead]

Virtualize a Server with Minimal Downtime

I used this to move from a physical to virtual. it should work for this and it doesn't matter what size the hd is.

[oxy]

I thought about doing that from a life CD.
I boot from a life CD,
copy everything from HDD to an external HD,
shutdown, connect the new HDD,
boot from life CD and
copy everything back from external HD to local HDD.

So u mean there is no problem doing all that with a simple "cp -pr" ?
Files like /etc/fstab will not match the system anymore (??)

And how would be the easiest way to install a boot loader?
I have some ideas but a 2nd opinion would be nice.
Thanx a lot ...

[iwanabeguru]

if you want do this with a live cd mount all the two hdd and than copy the old to the new with cp -a.

/etc/fstab will match if you don't change the partition structure.

For installing the bootloader dowhat I said before.
bind your current dev dir into the new hdds dev dir and mount proc filesystem than chroot into the system in the new hdd. You can easily install your bootloader.

[RumbleFish]

Getting in to the habit of using 'cp -a' to copy disks will get you in to trouble. It _does_ copy the file data but does _not_ make the disks the same.
You will miss some inportant details which will cause your Linux distro to be very unstable.
See <<http://www.halfgaar.net/backing-up-unix>> for some guidance.

Your best bet is to use GNU TAR to transfer the data from one partition to another.

This is an example of how to use TAR:

tar -cf - --one-file-system | (cd /mnt/newpart ; tar -xvf - )

[oxy]

ok, tar sounds like a good option.

But there is still sth i did not understand:
what did iwanabeguru mean with

/etc/fstab will match if you don't change the partition structure.

I want to store the data in an external HDD, then plug the new HDD
and pull everything back. It seems hard to keep any partition structure
through the operation, even if the data is split in the same partitioning
order at the final HDD. Sounds like my idea wont work.

I can find an external USB-plugged case for 2.5in-HDD and connect the
new HDD through it and transfere the data in a direct way
(old HDD to new HDD directly).
But i still do not understand how /etc/fstab will address the /dev files
to the filesystem mount points correctly, if they have different sizes
(everything is actually different in a new HDD...)
Could u tell me a bit about that or give a reference?

[pavlo_7]

You can dd small drive to a larger one, and then resize partitions with gparted live cd.

[oxy]

Just to be sure, the BSD disklabel scheme is the right one, right?

[oxy]

hi,
trying to make an exactly equal partiton table in the new HDD,
i check the old HDD with fdisk:

# fdisk /dev/hda
Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1   *           1         851     6835626   83  Linux
/dev/hda2             852        4864    32234422+   5  Extended
/dev/hda5             852        1024     1389591   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6            1025        4864    30844768+  83  Linux

and then i try the same in expert mode ...

Command (m for help): x
Expert command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 4864 cylinders

Nr AF  Hd Sec  Cyl  Hd Sec  Cyl     Start      Size ID
 1 80   1   1    0 254  63  850         63   13671252 83
 2 00   0   1  851 254  63 1023   13671315   64468845 05
 3 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00
 4 00   0   0    0   0   0    0          0          0 00
 5 00   1   1  851 254  63 1023         63    2779182 82
 6 00 254  63 1023 254  63 1023         63   61689537 83

fdisk basic tell the 1st partition end at cyl 851 and fdisk expert
tells it end at cyl 851. Further incongruences are seen for the
other partitions.

Partition 3 and 4 from expert mode were created and erased at
the 1st install procedure. Do i have to create them with zero
dimention in the new HDD?

thanx for any tip ...