From: Doug Eubanks
My HDA drive is failing (I can hear the occasional click from it and I am seeing Smart errors,
The reason why I never build a system without a 3Ware card today.
A> Make bootable floppy
Redundant.
B> Start in single user mode
Typically a good idea, but you can do this with the original, and the new hard drive added.
C> Create same partition structure on hew drive
Yes, although it doesn't have to be the same. Just mount it all as you want under /newroot of the original. Don't forget to watch out for duplicate filesystem labels, and change your boot/fstab on the new.
D> Move all files from old partitions to new partitions
for i in ‘/ /boot/ /other/‘: do cd $i find . -mount | cpio -pmdv /newroot$i done
E> Switch drives F> Boot off floppy, mount, reinstall grub and boot manager on new drive
Or just use the distro's CD and rescue mode.
G> Profit! Any hangups or snags doing it this way?
Only as mentioned above.