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List Info
Thread: Questions about moving Ubuntu to a new hard drive
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| Questions about moving Ubuntu to a new
hard drive |

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2007-04-15 07:29:29 |
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Hi,
I am running out of space on my computer and thinking of replacing one of the hard drives with something much bigger. Right now I have an 80 GB ATA drive, a 250 GB SATA and a 300 GB SATA. Ubuntu root (and everything else Ubuntu - I don't put /home etc on a different partition) is on the 80 GB along with a Windows XP partition (half and half). I am thinking about replacing the 80 GB with a 500 GB drive. What I am wondering is:
(1) what is the best way to move Ubuntu to a new hard drive? Will something like "cp -pR" work? Or should I do a bit-for-bit copy (with dd?). If I copy the 80 GB and then replace it with a 500GB ATA I assume that it will have the same address and I can leave Grub alone. Is this correct? If I instead put in a new SATA drive, can I just alter the grub boot file and everything will be OK?
(2) Are there any issues involved with using an SATA drive to boot from. I seem to remember there were some issues a couple years ago when I first built this computer... but I can't remember what it was any more? Maybe it was that windows doesn't (or didn't) like to boot from SATA? If the new root drive is SATA will I face any difficulties I wouldn';t with ATA?
Thanks in advance,
Craig
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| Re: Questions about moving Ubuntu to a
new hard drive |

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2007-04-15 11:20:46 |
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Hello,
On 4/15/07, Craig Hagerman < craighagerman gmail.com">craighagerman gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
I am running out of space on my computer and thinking of replacing one of the hard drives with something much bigger. Right now I have an 80 GB ATA drive, a 250 GB SATA and a 300 GB SATA. Ubuntu root (and everything else Ubuntu - I don't put /home etc on a different partition) is on the 80 GB along with a Windows XP partition (half and half). I am thinking about replacing the 80 GB with a 500 GB drive. What I am wondering is:
(1) what is the best way to move Ubuntu to a new hard drive? Will something like "cp -pR" work? Or should I do a bit-for-bit copy (with dd?). If I copy the 80 GB and then replace it with a 500GB ATA I assume that it will have the same address and I can leave Grub alone. Is this correct? If I instead put in a new SATA drive, can I just alter the grub boot file and everything will be OK?
man tar
from old drive to new drive mounted on /mnt/new_drive
cd /mnt/new_drive tar --exclude='*new_drive*' cf - / | tar xf -
That 39;s assuming that the new drive is formatted correctly and all your partitions are mounted properly.
(2) Are there any issues involved with using an SATA drive to boot from. I seem to remember there were some issues a couple years ago when I first built this computer... but I can't remember what it was any more? Maybe it was that windows doesn't (or didn't) like to boot from SATA? If the new root drive is SATA will I face any difficulties I wouldn';t with ATA?
After Edgy there are no issues with SATA disks. They are just seen as regular SCSI disks, same like ATA and everything else. If your BIOS supports booting from SATA disks, then you should have no problems.
I9;ll suggest that you use LVM on your new disk. You can do this by creating a 200MB /boot partition and a volume group for your Ubuntu installation (for a Desktop you don't really need a partition for /home).
The beauty about LVM is that later when you decide to add another disk to your computer, you don't have to do anything. to transfer your files. Just add the disk and grow the partition (span between the two disks).
There is a lot of literature about LVM online. Try Howtoforge and The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP). Google is your friend.
Regards,
-- ----)(----- Luis Mondesi *NIX Guru
"Feliz el hombre que ha hallado sabiduria y el hombre que consigue discernimiento, porque el tenerla como ganancia es mejor que tener la plata como ganancia; y el tenerla como producto, [mejor] que el oro mismo" (Prov 3:13-14)
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| Re: Questions about moving Ubuntu to a
new hard drive |

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2007-04-15 14:19:01 |
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Windows XP (even SP2) can be difficult to install on a SATA drive if you don't have a floppy for a driver disk. Luis is right about the LVM bit, it's not too hard to get going, and it can save you lots of work in the future.
It is my opinion that the easiest thing to do is to leave / (root) on your 80GB ATA and make your new drive /home so all you need to move over are your files. This is all based on the assumption that most of your data is in your /home folder and that your root directory won't be needing to expand any time soon.
-Scott
On 4/15/07, Luis Mondesi < lemsx1 gmail.com">lemsx1 gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
On 4/15/07, Craig Hagerman < craighagerman gmail.com" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">
craighagerman gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
I am running out of space on my computer and thinking of replacing one of the hard drives with something much bigger. Right now I have an 80 GB ATA drive, a 250 GB SATA and a 300 GB SATA. Ubuntu root (and everything else Ubuntu - I don't put /home etc on a different partition) is on the 80 GB along with a Windows XP partition (half and half). I am thinking about replacing the 80 GB with a 500 GB drive. What I am wondering is:
(1) what is the best way to move Ubuntu to a new hard drive? Will something like "cp -pR" work? Or should I do a bit-for-bit copy (with dd?). If I copy the 80 GB and then replace it with a 500GB ATA I assume that it will have the same address and I can leave Grub alone. Is this correct? If I instead put in a new SATA drive, can I just alter the grub boot file and everything will be OK?
man tar
from old drive to new drive mounted on /mnt/new_drive
cd /mnt/new_drive tar --exclude='*new_drive*' cf - / | tar xf -
That 39;s assuming that the new drive is formatted correctly and all your partitions are mounted properly.
(2) Are there any issues involved with using an SATA drive to boot from. I seem to remember there were some issues a couple years ago when I first built this computer... but I can't remember what it was any more? Maybe it was that windows doesn't (or didn't) like to boot from SATA? If the new root drive is SATA will I face any difficulties I wouldn';t with ATA?
After Edgy there are no issues with SATA disks. They are just seen as regular SCSI disks, same like ATA and everything else. If your BIOS supports booting from SATA disks, then you should have no problems.
I9;ll suggest that you use LVM on your new disk. You can do this by creating a 200MB /boot partition and a volume group for your Ubuntu installation (for a Desktop you don't really need a partition for /home).
The beauty about LVM is that later when you decide to add another disk to your computer, you don't have to do anything. to transfer your files. Just add the disk and grow the partition (span between the two disks).
There is a lot of literature about LVM online. Try Howtoforge and The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP). Google is your friend.
Regards,
-- ----)(----- Luis Mondesi
*NIX Guru
"Feliz el hombre que ha hallado sabiduria y el hombre que consigue discernimiento, porque el tenerla como ganancia es mejor que tener la plata como ganancia; y el tenerla como producto, [mejor] que el oro mismo" (Prov 3:13-14)
-- ubuntu-users mailing list lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-users lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-users
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| Re: Questions about moving Ubuntu to a
new hard drive |

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2007-04-15 19:41:51 |
On 4/16/07, Luis Mondesi <lemsx1 gmail.com> wrote:
>
> man tar
>
> from old drive to new drive mounted on /mnt/new_drive
>
> cd /mnt/new_drive
> tar --exclude='*new_drive*' cf - / | tar xf -
>
> That's assuming that the new drive is formatted
correctly and all your
> partitions are mounted properly.
>
> > (2) Are there any issues involved with using an
SATA drive to boot from. I
> seem to remember there were some issues a couple years
ago when I first
> built this computer... but I can't remember what it was
any more? Maybe it
> was that windows doesn't (or didn't) like to boot from
SATA? If the new root
> drive is SATA will I face any difficulties I wouldn't
with ATA?
>
>
> After Edgy there are no issues with SATA disks. They
are just seen as
> regular SCSI disks, same like ATA and everything else.
If your BIOS
> supports booting from SATA disks, then you should have
no problems.
>
> I'll suggest that you use LVM on your new disk. You can
do this by creating
> a 200MB /boot partition and a volume group for your
Ubuntu installation (for
> a Desktop you don't really need a partition for
/home).
>
> The beauty about LVM is that later when you decide to
add another disk to
> your computer, you don't have to do anything. to
transfer your files. Just
> add the disk and grow the partition (span between the
two disks).
>
> There is a lot of literature about LVM online. Try
Howtoforge and The Linux
> Documentation Project (TLDP). Google is your friend.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> ----)(-----
> Luis Mondesi
Thanks for the example of how to use the tar command Luis.
I do know about LVM. I was on the LVM users mailing list and
used it
for a couple of years, but I stopped using it. I had used
LVM to make
two large discs appear as one huge disc (ie 250 GB + 300 GB
= 550GB
LVM volume). After a while I started wondering what would
happen if
one drive failed. I have had a hard drive fail suddenly more
than once
(I am sure we all have) and know that all drives will fail
eventually.
With my large LVM drive people kept pointing me to RAID. But
a
mirrored RAID (1) defeats the purpose of using LMV to make
one large
drive. RAID 0 would be striped but without parity, defeating
the
purpose of RAID for recovery. RAID 5 does striping with
parity but
needs at least 3 discs (I had two). I asked the LVM group a
few times
how or if it was possible to recover data from a good drive
is the bad
one went, and I basically was told 'that isn't what LVM is
about'.
Myself and some other people throught that should be
included in what
a volume manager is about. For that reason I have gotten rid
of LVM
and gone back to having separate discs.
As far as I see it there are two uses for LVM: (1) to make
two or more
discs appear as one large contiguous disc and (2) a better
way to
'partition' a disc that can be easily and safely
expanded/contracted.
I think that (2) is great, but for the reasons above I have
a problem
with (1) if there is no fault recovery built in anywhere.
Thanks,
Craig
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