More follow-up as I am discovering and learning: >> 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? So after booting to the CentOS 5.3 LiveCD, I can get to '/mnt/ VolGroup00-LogVol00' doing a: 'sudo du -h --summarize /mnt/VolGroup00-LogVol00' I get: 28GB used. So can I 'rsync -av /mnt/VolGroup00-LogVol00/. /mnt/disc/sda1/.' (sda1 is the 500GB USB Drive that I am wanting to put the data on.) Best, -ML