Hi Robert,
I should just be able to insert the live cd and do a cp -r on / to the destination USB drive, correct?
You don't even need the live cd. Just boot up single user, plug in the USB drive, format it with ext2 or ext3 to match the box and do your cp -r, although there are probably better options (eg dump/restore, tar, etc.) that might do a better job. Warning: there might be more than one partition (eg /boot and/or /home might be a separate partition, esp. if the machines are using LVM). You might need to cp each partition/file system separately.
I booted to a the CentOS 5.23 LiveCD.
Yes, it looks like LVM is running because I do have VolGroup00- LogVol00 in Local Logical Volumes on the desktop.
Can I get the whole VolGroup00 at once, I see an entry in /etc/fstab for /dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00?
If not, how do I know what the partitions are that I need to go after on this old drive after being booted to a LiveCD. I chose a LiveCD because without it the machine takes an hour to boot die to DNS issues and time-outs since moving it to my location (and the original location does not exist either)
Best, -ML
-Jason