On Friday 09 December 2011 10:41:26 pm Gavin Stephens wrote: > Is it possible to just copy the partition from the old disk to the new > one, but then extend the partition out to fill the mammoth amount of > space on the new one? I've never attempted this yet in Linux, but I've > done it successfully in Windows on the active partition, so I'm guessing > this old Suse can do the same? Or do I need to re-install everything?
Upgrading hardware on a linux OS is easy compared to Windows. Windows has MANY "immovable" files, while only the boot code and master partition table are "immovable" in a Linux OS. You don't really want to copy the partition, as that leaves you with resizing later, which is never a good idea. Possible, but not a good idea. It also copies hardware specific stuff that isn't applicable to the target disk, or may be flat wrong, depending on how the hardware works, maps itself, and such. The "easy" way would be to install a base system on your target disk. This will set up the boot code for you, and give you enough of a system to work with the rest. Note, a BASE system. The minimum your OS of choice will allow. Then, merely copy all of the files recursively from your source disk, but do not over write the existing target files. Since it was a base system only, most all of them will be identical to your source files anyway, with a few exceptions, such as fstab. The copy will add files part of your source that were not in the target base system, such as everything that was "installed" onto your source disk. Manually check your configuration files ( anything in /etc ) for changes. Boot the new disk. It should be running fine. The other way, is to copy the partition using something like dd, then chroot to that target ( do NOT reboot ) and fix the boot loader, ( re-run LILO if using lilo ) then re-size using a program written to resize an active running partition. Then, try to reboot that target device. It may, or may need more work. The major difference between Windows and anything else, ( including DOS ) is the Windows Registry. Anything "installed" into/onto Windows involves changes to the registry. The OS itself, and includes binary hard disk sector addresses. *nix doesn't use a registry, so is much more similar to Win3.x running over DOS than to any post W9x Windows. This is why your install CD for any Linux can be used as a "recovery" system, by booting the CD then chroot to the hard disk. If the files exist on the target, the target system will run just fine once the kernel is in memory. -- Cowboy http://cowboy.cwf1.com Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. _______________________________________________ Rivendell-dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.rivendellaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/rivendell-dev
