I think if you did a dd and copied the whole drive to the 80gb, you would
wind up with a 80gb that looks and acts like a 60gb, and would boot up like
your original drive, after they replaced the original with it.

You could then resize the partitions, to use the unused space.
 

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
[mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of Erich
Newell
Sent: Monday, December 22, 2008 1:45 PM
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Migrating HDs on remote server

I have a server that is remotely hosted and has a drive with over 48k hours
on it (and still running strong)...my hosting company is providing a free
replacement and I need to migrate everything over and have the system come
back up gracefully without any physical interaction...other than one drive
being stuck in the second drive bay temporarily and the original being taken
out and replaced with the second drive when ready.

Here's what I have:

/dev/hda - 60GB old drive
    hda1        Boot        Primary   Linux ext3
78.45
                            Pri/Log   Free Space
1.04
    hda2                    Primary   Linux swap / Solaris
1074.00
    hda3                    Primary   Linux ext3
58869.01

/dev/hdc - 80GB new drive
    hdc1        Boot        Primary   Linux ext3
74.84
    hdc2                    Primary   Linux swap / Solaris
511.97
    hdc3                    Primary   Linux ext3
79439.57

/etc/fstab
     /dev/hda3   /       ext3    usrquota,grpquota,errors=remount-ro   0 1
     proc        /proc   proc    defaults            0 0
     /dev/hda2   none    swap    sw                  0 0
     /dev/hda1   /boot   ext3    defaults            0 2

By my thinking...I should be able to:

mkdir /newdrive
mkdir /newdrive/{boot,newroot}

mount -t ext3 /dev/hdc1 /newdrive/boot
mount -t ext3 /dev/hdc3 /newdrive/newroot

rsync -av / /newdrive/newroot
rsync -av /boot /newdrive/boot

grub

grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd1)

and then shutdown, pull hdc and put it in hda and fire it up.

What I'm uncertain of is the "setup (hd1)" bit....will this setup the boot
field in some way such that it will not work?

If the drives were the same, I'd feel comfortable using dd to simply copy
over the MBR, but since they are not, I'm worried about wrecking my
partition table.


Thoughts and advice are urgently needed. Thanks!!!

- Erich

--
"A man is defined by the questions that he asks; and the way he goes about
finding the answers to those questions is the way he goes through life."
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