Rescue mode from a DVD or PXEBoot (I have my network setup with the latter so I can boot into any recent Fedora/EL rescue mode) is an ideal option. You don't want to be running from the failing hard disk itself.
I also concur with the other comments, don't use "dd." I would: A) Backup what you need first and foremost, B) Use a more selective imaging, like dump|restore, parted, etc... that copies only sectors I recently had a colleague with a failing disk. He used pvmove. It was the fastest and most efficient mechanism. It took a long time because sectors had to be re-read, but it worked. He got everything. LVM is nice to have at times, just for things like this. Then all one would have to do is mirror the small /boot slice separately, outside of LVM. ________________________________ From: Gary Gatling <gsgat...@ncsu.edu> To: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (Tikanga) discussion mailing-list <rhelv5-list@redhat.com> Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 9:52 AM Subject: Re: [rhelv5-list] can I use dd to clone the failing "root" drive? Forgot to mention I did this from a install DVD in rescue mode for RHEL 5. On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 9:51 AM, Gary Gatling <gsgat...@ncsu.edu> wrote: Hello, > > >I did this recently with a RHEL 5 laptop. The disk wasn't failing though. It >was just smaller than I would have liked. > > >Left the old drive in place and put new drive in usb device that connects two >sata drives, either laptop or desktop. The one we bought fits either type... > >What worked best for me was: > > >dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=100M > > >because I was in a hurry and the new disk was 1 TB. > > >Because I used lvm on that disk I had to do a bunch of stuff to "grow" >everything to fill the new disk. But if you don't care about any extra space >you might not need that last part. If you don't use lvm I think you can just >use a gparted live DVD or live CD and increase your partiation sizes. > >Cheers, > > >On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 9:30 AM, Mirko Vukovic <mirko.vuko...@gmail.com> wrote: > >Hello, >> >>The drive /dev/sda on which the kernel, root, and RHEL in general live is >>slowly dying (based on smartctl). I have the replacement drive in hand. >> >>Is the following possible? >> >>- put the replacement drive into an empty bay >>- clone /dev/sda onto it like: dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdc >>- move the new drive into the /dev/sda drive bay >> >>Or is there another preferable solution? >> >>Thank you, >> >>Mirko >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>rhelv5-list mailing list >>rhelv5-list@redhat.com >>https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-list >> >> > _______________________________________________ rhelv5-list mailing list rhelv5-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-list _______________________________________________ rhelv5-list mailing list rhelv5-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/rhelv5-list
