Robert Heller wrote:
Is there a standard way of copying a working system from one machine to another with different partitions?
After copying the system, you will likely need to remake the initrd on the target system. Oh, you will need to edit /etc/modprobe.conf: different SATA driver, different ethernet driver, etc.
Is this a hopeless enterprise, or can it be done easily?
It is easy enough to do. There are just a few more things involved besides copying the data and diddling with grub.conf, /etc/fatab, and /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts. You just forgot about /etc/modprobe.conf and forgot to remake the the initrd.
Thanks for your response (and the many others).
Looking back, I think most of my problems did actually arise from not re-making initrd. (I actually used a kernel and initrd from machine B.) I looked at /etc/modprobe.d/ but not /etc/modprobe.conf .
I'll try again, and run kudzu as someone suggested. Actually, I've ordered a huge new disk for machine B (an HP MicroServer), so I probably could use clonezilla.
But the whole thing is just an experiment, as I said. The problem is that the partition table on machine A, which is my home server, has been destroyed (through folly on my part), and my hope was to have a substitute machine which could just be plugged in to replace machine A.
But I suspect I'll have to get down to re-making the partition table on machine A. I back up everything useful on it each night with backuppc, so hopefully I'm not looking at a disaster in any case.