>>> What is the most practical method to replace the hard drive? >> Install another drive (same size or larger), boot from CD in rescue >> mode and use the dd utility to copy the old drive image to the new >> disk (example: dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb). However, the failing >> hardware could make this problematic. Then remove the dying disk and >> install the new disk on the cable where the old disk was so that the >> new disk is now /dev/hda. >> > > Tried this, I should have been more clear above. When I access certain > sectors the machine reboots. Just to confirm: you mean the machine reboots even when this disk is not a system disk? Suppose you mount it readonly (maybe it's doing atime updates unsuccessfully?)? If it's a peculiarity of the controller, you could try putting it in as a data disk in another machine with a different kind of disk controller. You could even put it in a Windows box and use one the various free utilities to look at the Linux filesystem - perhaps that would not exercise whatever issue is causing the reboots. If you've gotten the vital data off and any customizations out of /etc, the crontabs, etc., then if possible, maybe you could just do an "rpm -q -a" to get the current package list, and then diff that against the list you get on a fresh install to figure out what you need to add. Dan