[CentOS] backup with dd

[Les Mikesell]

Hiep Nguyen wrote:
> >
>>> Clonezilla-live is a boot-from CD linux that will copy just the used
>>> portions of the disk and can save to another disk or image files on 
>>> local
>>> disks or over the network.  I'd recommend it over dd, but maybe 
>>> someone has
>>> a way to do LVM snapshots so the copy can be done without a reboot.
>>
>>
>> I'm downloading the .iso for clonezilla-live now. It's a very small
>> download. 81.2 MB
>>
> 
> i don't know if this is possible, but assume my centos box's motherboard 
> goes sour, can i just take its hard drive and put on similar pc?

The disk is probably the most likely single thing to fail, but within 
some constraints you can move the disk around - and the same issues 
apply to image copies and backups.  The main thing is that the driver 
for the disk controller has to be included in the kernel or initrd, so 
for example, moving a scsi disk with the boot/root partitions to a 
machine with a different controller will be a problem. You can fix this 
with some contortions to rebuild the initrd with the right modules from 
a rescue mode CD boot.  You may also have to reconfigure the display if 
you have a different video card or monitor but you can normally run in 
text mode while doing that.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com