home dir to usb

[Eric Shubert]

Betty,
Please use the rsync command as Ed stated.
rsync (with the -a option in particular) takes care of some "gotchas" 
that the cp command can sometimes produce if you don't remember how to 
use it just right.

betty wrote:
> i'm sure i know less than you, the advice was to use dd. is one better 
> than the other?? i'm willing to use whatever will work to copy my home 
> dir to the new computer so that all my settings are the same.
> 
> what would be the command for cp?
> thx
> betty i
> 
> Eric Cope wrote:
>> please excuse my ignorance, why would cp -r not work?
>> Eric
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 9:33 PM, betty <nicepenguin at webcanine.com 
>> <mailto:nicepenguin at webcanine.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     I installed the new drive into the new computer. I'm going to transfer
>>     the home directory to a usb drive and then to the new computer.
>>     This is the command i tried and the result i got.
>>
>>      stormy at stormy-desktop:~$ sudo dd if=/home/stormy of=/dev/sdc1
>>     bs=1024k
>>     [sudo] password for stormy:
>>     dd: reading `/home/stormy': Is a directory
>>     0+0 records in
>>     0+0 records out
>>     0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000942499 s, 0.0 kB/s
>>     stormy at stormy-desktop:~$
>>
>>     What is wrong there? i am such an idiot on command line stuff. aghhh.
>>     Thanks.
>>     betty i.
>>
>>     Joseph Sinclair wrote:
>>     > First, I'd definitely recommend going with a new SATA drive on
>>     the new machine.  You'll find everything just works better and the
>>     added reliability of a newer drive makes for a lot less stress
>>     (although regular and frequent backups are definitely the best
>>     peace-of-mind tool).
>>     >
>>     > For the data transfer there are 3 simple options:
>>     > 1) If you have, or can borrow, a large enough USB drive (flash
>>     or HDD), I'd copy everything (I prefer rsync, but dd is a good
>>     choice too) to the USB drive, then copy from that to the new computer.
>>     > 2) Temporarily install the old drive in the new machine on the
>>     ATA (CDROM) interface (if the new machine has an old-style ATA
>>     interface for the CD drives), and copy the data from one drive to
>>     the other (definitely use rsync here).
>>     > 3) Connect the two machines to an ethernet router/hub and use
>>     rsync to transfer the files over the ethernet connection.
>>     >
>>     > However you end up doing the transfer, I'd definitely recommend
>>     retaining a separate backup of all of your personal data
>>     (pictures, documents, music, videos, etc...) as part of the
>>     process, if at all possible.
>>     >
>>     --
>>     betty i.
>>     www.webcanine.com <http://www.webcanine.com>
>>     information for people
>>     who care for dogs.
>>
>>     ---------------------------------------------------
>>     PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
>>     <mailto:PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us>
>>     To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>>     http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> Eric Cope
>> http://cope-et-al.com
> 
> 


-- 
-Eric 'shubes'