I'm currently rsyncing an OS (new gentoo install) from one vmware disk to a newly created one.
I know not to copy /proc but not sure about /dev. Looking at an unbooted OS disk with an install on it... I see /dev/ is populated (with no boot up), but I recall seeing things during boot like `populating /dev' (I think). So should I copy it over to new disk or not? OH, what this is all about is maybe worth mention here for someone else doing similar. I opened a vmware appliance (pre made install of gentoo 1008), thinking I'd be able to fairly quickly get it up to date. The reason I went with the premade appliance is that I've tried several times to get a vmware gentoo guest going but always have trouble when booting off the newly built kernel. I've fussed with that repeatedly and only managed long ago to get one gentoo vmware guest running. (There was quite a tirade of threads initiated by me here back then), So anyway the appliance turned out to be a real chore to get updated... Circular dependancies involving different versions of portage and somekind of api... maybe eapi1 not working with various pkgs, all in all a big nasty circle jerk... so went ahead and tried the `from scratch' route. And true to form having plenty of trouble getting my kernel to see the vmware disk I installed on, once I boot off the new kernel. I chose to install on a scsi disk as recommended by vmwares' help. That, I think is where the rub currently is. I noticed the appliance (From bagvapp) was built on an IDE disk, And its worth noting that even when booting from the appliance,,, that kernel doesn't see the scsi disk either... (with fdisk). So the livecd kernel sees both the appliance IDE disk and the scsi disk I installed on. That kernel appears to be genkernel built and uses the initrd approach, so all mod are in play before the actual kernel starts booting. Anyway, cutting to the chase, I added an IDE disk myself and am copying the OS from the original SCSI to the IDE (I foolishly did quite a bit of emerging and configuring from the chroot before actually testing if it would boot so, don't wan't to lose that work and do another fresh install). So, I'm about to find out if any of it is going to work but wondered about copying /dev/ over.
