[CentOS] did CentOS x86 5.3 migrate to another hard drive, but console login keeps prompting even with correct password

Thu Sep 3 07:00:17 UTC 2009
choyaumeshu <choyaumeshu at gmail.com>

first time poster here - hello everyone


I started out with CentOS x86 5.3 with the following partitions on my source
hard drive:
/dev/hdc1    swap
/dev/hdc2    /


I did the following to migrate my CentOS box to the destination hard drive:
1. boot up with CentOS 5.3 livecd in rescue mode
2. partition destination hard drive (/dev/hdd)
    /dev/hdd1    swap
    /dev/hdd2    /
3. create the filesystem on the destination hard drive
    mke2fs -j /dev/hdd2
    mkswap /dev/hdd1
4. mount partitions and then copied files from /dev/hdc2 to /dev/hdd2
    mount /dev/hdc2 /mnt/aa
    mount /dev/hdd2 /mnt/bb
    cd /mnt/aa
    tar --one-file-system -cf - . | tar -xpf - -C /mnt/bb
5. modify /boot/grub/menu.lst on both /dev/hdc2 and /dev/hdd2
6. modify /etc/fstab and /etc/mtab
7. umount partitions
8. run grub
9. reboot out of rescue mode


The original system still boots up fine and I am able to login. The new
system which is supposedly a copy of the original system seems to boot up
fine (everything had green OK), but I have problems at the login prompt. If
I login with incorrect password, I get a message telling me that login is
incorrect. If I try to login with the correct password, the system seems to
accept the password, but then prompts me again to login, and it keeps doing
this when I continually try to login.


additional info:
1. can boot up system in single user mode
2. sshd is up but can't ssh in even with correct password
here's the output (i modified the user name and the ip address)
ssh -l user1 ipaddress
user1 at ipaddress's password:
/bin/bash: Permission denied
Connection to ipaddress closed.


I'm sorry if this has already been addressed in the forums/mailinglists, but
my attempted search didn't show me anything fruitful. Also, I'd don't want
to use dd, and I would prefer not to use partimage. Your help will be
appreciated and thanks for reading this far.
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