[CentOS] transfer data from one hard drive to another

Sat Oct 7 11:25:08 UTC 2006
Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu>

On Friday 06 October 2006 22:42, Joseph Cheng wrote:
> Thx for all the suggestions ppl. I think for simplicity I will either
> go with the knoppix & dd solution or I also found ghost 4 unix
> http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

I have used the dd solution a number of times, and it works quite well. 

There are, however, a couple of suggestions I would make:
1.) Use the CentOS rescue mode (boot CD number 1, type 'linux rescue' at the 
boot prompt) and tell it not to mount your drives.  No need to download Yet 
Another Linux Distribution to do the work.  Or use the CentOS LiveCD.
2.) While the dd is running, you can check on its progress.  Switch to another 
virtual console (you are by default on VC 1; hit ALT-F2 to go to VC 2) and 
send the dd process a SIGUSR1 (run a ps ax and make a note of the dd 
process's PID; then kill -USR1 $PID); then switch back to VC 1 and you'll see 
where dd is in your copy.

You can then run fdisk or parted and grow the partition; then you can resize 
the filesystem (I'm fairly certain the rescue mode includes the resizing 
program; not sure about the LiveCD, but I would think it does).  The native 
CentOS tools to do this are, in my experience, far superior in quality to the 
various third party solutions (including Symantec Ghost) availabe to do this 
sort of thing.  They are a little harder to use, though they seem to work 
better.
-- 
Lamar Owen
Director of Information Technology
Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute
1 PARI Drive
Rosman, NC  28772
(828)862-5554
www.pari.edu