How to migrate XP, Vista, Linux, BSD and Solaris to a bigger hard disk - Page 9


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Thread: How to migrate XP, Vista, Linux, BSD and Solaris to a bigger hard disk

  1. #121
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    If your sdc1 is a self-contained Linux then it can be booted up without the swap partition but adding a swap does no harm. You will need to do the following tasks

    (1) Best way is to use a Linux Live CD, any one would do.

    (2) Boot up the Linux Live CD and mount sdc1 which will become a different device if the original sdb is withdrawn. Edit it /etc/fstab to reflect the new partition referece of the swap and the root partition of the Linux. Forget about the UUID as you can survive without it.

    (3) Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst to reflect the Linux is in the 1st partition of the ?th disk.

    (4) Restore Grub

    Then your Linux should boot fine afterward.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  2. #122
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    Well unfortunately it didn't work. I tried to boot up the drive and it looks like everything is working fine. However, when it starts loading Ubuntu it uses the text based mode instead of the little scrolling bar, and it just hangs when starting CUPS. It says that it's done (i.e. it says starting CUPS and then I see [ok] printed on the right side of the screen) but then it just sits there for eternity. I let it go for over an hour and it was just hanging.

    So then I tried copying the entire drive over using:

    Code:
    dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc
    and it said that it failed after transferring 21 gigabytes. I guess that sdb1 partition (Fedora) is really hosed...so much so that it won't let me even copy it with dd.



    I did stumble upon a much better laptop at work however, so I wanted to transfer everything over from my existing laptop to the new one. The copy process (using dd) worked pretty well except that wireless doesn't work and it doesn't seem to want to use the proprietary nvidia drivers. I'll start a new thread for that but I used dd over an nfs mount and it worked perfectly.

    I basically just turned on my existing laptop, booted up a live CD, mounted the NFS share, and then ran:

    Code:
    dd if=/dev/sda of=/foo/foo.dump
    Once it finished I fired up the live CD on my new laptop, mounted the NFS share, and then ran this:

    Code:
    dd if=/foo/foo.dump of=/dev/sda
    It worked! Oh and FYI, while in the Ubuntu 9.04 live CD, I had to run "sudo apt-get install portmap nfs-common" before I could mount the NFS share.
    "The author of that poem is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name."

  3. #123
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    Ok so after using the tar command to copy failed, I tried just doing a direct clone of the drives. Here is the exact error that I'm getting. Since sdb is a 250gb drive, I don't think that cloning 20GB is sufficient...

    Code:
    ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo -i
    root@ubuntu:~# dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc bs=32256
    dd: reading `/dev/sdb': Input/output error
    632503+1 records in
    632503+1 records out
    20402040832 bytes (20 GB) copied, 622.65 s, 32.8 MB/s
    "The author of that poem is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name."

  4. #124
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    This command
    Code:
     dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sdc bs=32256 conv=notrunc,noerror
    Instructs dd not to truncate the files and keep on going even there are errors

    You will get the whole disk cloned but some files may have holes if the original has corruption. You can read the man page of dd for the further explanations.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  5. #125
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    Well Saikee thank you for all of your wonderful help, but unfortunately it looks like I'm just going to have to reinstall and copy all the data over. Even the notrunc, noerror options couldn't save me. It just started spitting out output like crazy to the terminal and then eventually hung. Oddly enough, when I checked fdisk -l after that, sdb was gone and the kernel now saw it as sdd?? I'm not sure what was up with that. There just was no sdb drive anymore (even though it was named sdb before I ran the dd).

    In any case, thanks for the fine help. I guess I'll try cool stuff like this later on a working system with a hard drive that isn't toast!
    "The author of that poem is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name."

  6. #126
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    gamblor01,

    It does sound that you have left it too late to salvage the disk.

    I believe there are several threads in JL that you can search to try out different combinations.

    I do echo the sentiment in the Post #119 by LewRockwell. When you to start to salvage a hard disk you should have a strategy. Repeated attempts without premeditation do accelerate the deterioration of the disk.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  7. #127
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    Quote Originally Posted by saikee View Post
    gamblor01,

    It does sound that you have left it too late to salvage the disk.

    I believe there are several threads in JL that you can search to try out different combinations.

    I do echo the sentiment in the Post #119 by LewRockwell. When you to start to salvage a hard disk you should have a strategy. Repeated attempts without premeditation do accelerate the deterioration of the disk.
    Well thank goodness I already had the entire thing backed up then. At least, I had the only partition that I actually cared about backed up in its entirety thanks to the "tar cf - . | (cd /some/dir; tar xf -)" command! Good thing too -- that partition had my entire Facebook application that I have been working on for my thesis. I'm already cutting it close and unsure if I will graduate this semester. I have a backup but it's quite old. If I lost those files I would have gone berserk!!!!

    Time to make backup copies of all of my code and all of my latex files for my thesis...
    Last edited by gamblor01; 09-30-2009 at 10:48 PM.
    "The author of that poem is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name."

  8. #128
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    Yuo are THE Man!!

    I followed your instructions on page 1 of this topic on a special project. My system is a dual boot rig with xp and win 7. Since I wanted to migrate everything to bigger hard drive, (from 160 gb to 1 tb) I followed your tutorial and I was all set in about an hour!!
    My intention also is to tell people that dual boot system pose no problems with your instructions.

    Thanks for the fine job!!



    The Big Olmec Head

  9. #129
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    Big Olmec Head,

    Welcome to Justlinux!
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  10. #130
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    Great tutorial and information in this topic. I really haven't cloned anything before and while searching for software solutions from the "big name companies" I stumbled on this and I was greatly surprised to read how easy the process might be.

    I am looking to migrate a laptop (Latitude E5500) hard drive (Seagate 160GB) with a ton of software on it to a new larger drive but then add another fresh install of XP onto it for a dual or possible triple Windows XP boot system in the near future (for software version issues). However, to just get the clone worked out first I stuck the new drive (WD 320GB) in an external USB enclosure, booted up the system with the Parted Magic CD and cloned the drive with no issues at all overnight. I then took out the original hard drive and stuck in the new one and the system booted right up and seemed to function fine.

    However, now after looking into a few things I have a few issues. Since the original drive was only 160GB, the new drive partition is 160GB and upon looking in Computer Management there is no drive other than my optical drive shown in Disk Management. Also, when trying to run the standard Windows Disk Defragmenter I just get an error stating it can't start - but the drive is seen by Disk Defragmenter. Also, when trying to run chkdsk I get an error stating it can't complete the task and it won't even attempt it. I was going to try getting into the Recovery Console to run FIXMBR and FIXBOOT but I can't get the Recovery Console to successfully load either by CD or by installing it on the hard drive and accessing it through the Startup Options. Also, PowerQuest Partition Magic 8.0 fails to run with an error of "Partition's drive letter cannot be identified".

    All programs seem to run fine and I can access the hard drives C: partition fine through Windows Explorer but it seems that I can't do any management tasks involving the hard drive. Does anyone have any input on how I can troubleshoot or solve these issues? Thank you in advance.

  11. #131
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    JReese,

    Welcome to Justlinux!

    and

    Happy New Year.


    We need to know your partitioning scheme become able to comment on what you are doing. You can be assured that cloning the hard disk cannot possibly alter your operating system.

    The best information on your hard disk is obtainable in a root Linux terminal using command
    Code:
    sudo fdisk -l
    or
    Code:
    fdisk -l
    if you are logged in as a root user (equivalent to admin in MS Windows).

    The Fixboot and fixmbr are only needed if you have Linux occupying the boot sector and MBR repectively but want to revert back to the equivalent in MS Windows.

    I would strongly recommend using only one partitioning tools and stay away from the PowerQuest's Partition Magic. It is known as Partition Tragic and spread out hard disk corruptions because PowerQuest does not understand partitions other than MS systems.

    Linux on the other hand supports 100+ partition types. Partition Tragic can report a healthy hard disk with errors in the partition table. If you allow it to alter it then you could suffer hard disk corruption. I would say about 20 to 30% hard disk problems reported in various forums are courtesy of Partition Tragic. You can run it but don't take up its advices if you run non-MS partitions.

    If your partitions are reported by the disk management then they are healthy. MS is the first operating system to abandon a hard disk if it has an error in the partition table. Linux is the last one to do the same. So Linux is a much better tool and utility when it comes to salvage and save information in a hard disk.

    After you clone the 160Gb into the 320Gb there should be 160Gb unallocated space. This space can be turn into partition "only" if you have not used up all the 4 primary partitions. If you have used up all 4 primaries then you need to reorganise the hard disk.

    You can put any number of Xp copies (assuming from the same license or different licenses) in a hard disk but you can only run one copy at a time and hide the rest.

    I have run 126 copies of Xp in a 1TB hard disk before! You can run a BAT file in Dos to control the booting or use a script file in Linux. The latter is easier. If you have less than 6 MS systems then Grub is totally capable of booting them for you as Grub can hide and unhide partitions.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  12. #132
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    Thanks for the reply.

    Below is the contents from "fdisk -l" from the Terminal in Parted Magic.
    Code:
    root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l
    
    Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0xa42d04a3
    
       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sda1               1          10       80293+  de  Dell Utility
    /dev/sda2   *          11       19456   156199995    7  HPFS/NTFS
    And just to reiterate the main problem here is that my partition is NOT showing up in Disk Management. I can tell by the properties of my C: drive that it is only 160GB so I am aware that I have unallocated space and I need to create at least one other partition to be able to use that space but that is the problem - I have no access to the hard drive to do that (other than Parted Magic). It seems Windows doesn't know what is on the drive as far as partitions and other applications like Disk Defragmenter and Partition Magic won't work with it at all.

    And not to just pass on your judgment of Partition Magic (I am sure you are more knowledgeable than I am on this topic) but I have used Partition Magic about 20 times or so in the past to re-size & create partitions without a single issue in Windows XP installations. Granted this was dealing with strictly Windows file systems but that is all I am dealing with here.

    Below are some screenshots with a little more information.

    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1339417/c_drive_properties.png
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1339417/devi...properties.png
    http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1339417/disk_management.png

  13. #133
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    The fdisk -l output shows that you have a hard disk of 38913 cylinders and currently use from 1 to 19456 cylinders. That is about 50% of the capacity.

    You can use the unallocated space in either

    (1) Expand the sda2 which is your "C" drive in Xp as it is a NTFS partition Type 7.
    (2) To create a new primary partition sda3 and up to 11 logical partitions by using sda4 as an extended partition.
    (3) Any combination of (1) and (2).

    For (1) you need to run Parted Magic. Just use the mouse to drag the boundary of sda2 to any size you want.

    For (2) You can use any partitioning tool in Linux which is amply provided by Parted Magic. I would recommend the terminal command "cfdisk" as it is one of the best teacher on partitioning. As an example cfdisk does not create an extended partition. If you use it to create the first logical partition then the first one is sda5 and sda3 is automatically used up as an extended partition while sda4 is reserved as a future primary partition. If you create sda3 as a primary partition and the a logical partition then sda4 is used up automatically. This teaches you that sda1 to sda4 are primaries and all logical partitions start with sda5. You will also learn about the partition Type number which is used by all operating systems in a PC but MS Windows never tell you about them!

    It is the first time I see Disk Management fails to report a "C" drive that it is using but your partition table looks healthy to me. One thing though when the first time you install the hard disk Xp should detect the serial number of the hard disk has been changed and demand a reboot. The system is healthy after this reboot. Did this happen to you?

    My suggestion is try to use and experiment with the new drive but do not mixed with the old hard disk with Xp. I believe it is safe if the old disk is attached as an external disk but as an internal disk it may not be safe. If you need to transfer data use a Linux is the safest.

    Partition Magic is good for MS systems and should be OK in your case as you haven't installed any Linux in you hard disk yet. My message is Partition Magic claims to have ability to handle Linux partitions but in reality it doesn't, at least in some of the versions I tried, resulting me rebuild the partition table for a couple of hard disks that have 63 partitions inside.

    In you run several Xp on the same disk you need to install a Linux inside and use its boot loader for manipulating the partitions.

    You will in due time appreciate Linux is a much better and more robust OS when it comes to partitioning. It is also true that whatever MS and Linux read the same information on the hard disk. Thus if one says its is healthy the other system must do the same.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

  14. #134
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    Quote Originally Posted by saikee View Post
    It is the first time I see Disk Management fails to report a "C" drive that it is using but your partition table looks healthy to me. One thing though when the first time you install the hard disk Xp should detect the serial number of the hard disk has been changed and demand a reboot. The system is healthy after this reboot. Did this happen to you?
    No, this didn't happen and I thought that was strange after reading some of the other comments on here stating that it usually did happen. Windows didn't really act like anything changed. Not even a notification about installing drivers for the newly installed hard drive.

    I will do some testing tonight after work with the additional partitioning and maybe even try a second clone to see what happens and then post back later. Thanks again.

  15. #135
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    I have to apologize for not posting back regarding my issue. I was working on this off and on over a few weeks when I had the spare time and I just plain forgot to come back and post my results after more testing. Now today I figured I would be using this cloning method on another system over this weekend and a light bulb went off in my head thinking that I never posted back. I hate it when people do that!

    In regards to my issue the problems I was experiencing with not being able to perform any management tasks with the hard drive in Windows was indeed a problem with the Windows installation prior to doing the cloning. I have no idea what caused it in the first place (it wasn't my system; it was a past employees) but I didn't notice it prior to doing the cloning and I just assumed it was an issue with the cloning process. After trying this on two other systems and not having any issues at all I went back to inspect the first one and sure enough all of the problems existed in the original installation.

    Sorry and thanks again for great information on the cloning process!

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