Re: How best to copy the entire contents of one partition to…

In article <200601071807.09434.joe@actionline.com> you write:
> I need to try to resintall Mandriva 2006 because the one I've
> been screwing around with for nearly a month is apparently
> all messed up. It is on partition hda6.
>
> But in doing this, I want to make sure that my /home directory
> (which is on a separate partition, hda7) is protected. I do have
> a dvd backup of /home, but as an added precaution, I would like
> to copy the entire contents of /home (on hda7) to another unused
> partition (hda8). Would the following be the correct command to
> do this. With both hda7 and hda8 mounted, as root:
>

>     cp -pr /mnt/hda7 /mnt/hda8 

>
> Or is there another or better way to do this?

That's essentially what I would do, though with slightly different
options.

I recommend (as superuser):
    cp -ax sourcedir/. destdir

or, in this instance: cp -ax /mnt/hda7/. /mnt/hda8

The main advantage of "cp -ax" over "cp -pr" is that is will duplicate
symbolic links rather than copying their contents.

> I've heard of but never used 'dd' ... is that something that might
> be better to use in some way?

dd will copy the full partition, block by block, rather than
copying individual files. It's almost always more appropriate to do
"cp -a", unless fsck detects significant filesystem structure damage.

-Dale
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