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

Hi Saikee,

Thanks for your time, I appreciate this. I tried installing Xubuntu on my 40gig drive and it installed without issues, boots and runs. Here is the drive info you asked for:

root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 20.4 GB, 20490559488 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 39703 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x384372b4

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 39702 20009776+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4863 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x384372b4

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 243 1951866 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 244 729 3903795 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 730 4863 33206355 83 Linux
root@PartedMagic:~#

If you have installed Xubuntu then it has to be in sdb disk as sda has only one partition and it is a MS Windows with the FAT32 filing system.

If your sda is the first bootable disk (hd0) then your Windows will boot if these commands are in /boot/grub/menu.lst

Code:

---

title WIndows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

---

If the above fails post the content of Xubuntu's /boot/grub/menu.lst here.

Hi Saikee,

I probably haven't been very clear, sorry. I'm usually pretty good with hardware but this has me stumped. I've never tried to clone a Windows OS before this though.

My goal is to clone the Win XP installation from the 20g drive to the 40g drive. The 20g is out of space. The 20g drive is my original XP install drive and it works fine aside from the space issues.

After running DD on the 40g drive, I was able to access the files on the cloned 40g drive via parted magic... it just won't boot.

I've tried several free cloning tools. Your method sounds the most promising but I got the "missing operating system" as I mentioned before. After trying about 6 programs (none of which worked - all had similar issues), I began to wonder if the 40g drive had errors, even though I didn't detect any issues in formatting, partitioning, etc. To test the bad hardware theory, I installed Xubuntu on the 40g and it boots and runs fine. I assume the 40g drive is ok. When I installed Xubuntu, I had only the 40g drive connected. The 20g XP drive contains only the XP loader.

The 40g drive is a scratch drive so to speak, at least until I get a good working copy of XP on it. I can blow it away with a new format at any time.

It seems like the BIOS detects the drives just fine. I also have a 250g and 500g for data (and a new IDE controller coming soon so I can use them all at once). My BIOS automatically detects each drive.

I've already spent more time on this than just reinstalling the OS and calling MS to reactivate it... at this point I'm just trying to learn what, how and why this is a problem. I only have two things that cause me to keep Windows installed... photoshop and some games. As soon as GIMP supports 16-bits per color channel half my reason is done... maybe Wine will do for the rest.

Again, thanks for your help and suggestions.

OK I have re-read your partition table. There might be a problem with your disk geometry.

Your 20Gb hard disk is an old one with

Code:

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Disk /dev/sda: 20.4 GB, 20490559488 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 39703 cylinders

---

where as the 40Gb disk has the LBA mode with 255 head and 63 sectors

Code:

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Disk /dev/sdb: 40.0 GB, 40000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4863 cylinders

---

There may be some bios problems with the non-LBA older hard disk geometry imposing on the new hard disk which since has been standardised with LBA mode.

Nearly all my cloning work was with LBA hard disks with the standardised 255 heads and 63 sectors and so I didn't experience any problem.

Couldn't offer a solution here but if you are going to put Xp in a hard disk try it on a hard disk with LBA mode.

Saikee,

Interesting. I hadn't thought of that, and I doubt I would have. I figured the matching sectors/track was good enough. It explains much.

Thank you for your help!

I'm planning a hardware upgrade of the board, cpu, etc soon (6 year old system, I guess the 20g drive is even older) so I'll just wait for all of that and reinstall from scratch.

thanks again,

Sawsedge

sawsedge,

I did manage to clone systems with different geometries but had not investigated the process deep enough to make any useful contribution. The problem is of course hard disk specific. I also remember the cloned disks did have a stability problem of some sort.

All in all I would move with time and forget the old disks. AFAIK all hard disks sold nowadays are standardised in LBA mode with 255 heads and 63 sectors.

Yes I will do that as soon as I get the new board/cpu etc.

I had noticed on boot that the 20g is always reported as CHS, the rest of the drives as LBA. Thinking back on it, I believe I got that drive when I had a Celeron 366, so it is quite old.

Thanks again.

Little background...I had a disk that was showing signs of failing in my laptop. I purchased a new hard drive and usb enclosure to do a clone. Both gparted and parted magic would not even see the fact that there was another hard drive connected via USB. I gave the g4l live cd a shot. It saw the hard drive but would fail to copy.

Then I tried a knoppix live cd and all worked well. Then I used gparted live cd to do the partition resizing. All went perfect.

Just throught I'd throw that out there for people trying to clone a drive connected via USB. You may have to use Knoppix instead of gparted live cd and then just follow the directions listed in the first post.

drsatch,

I rather think your problem is hardware related.

It is a common fault that if a USB hard disk isn't properly powered then it may fail to be picked up by some operating systems.

The maximum power supply to a USB port is 0.5 Amp. Just about every 2.5" hard disk above 20Gb capacity would be using 0.5 to 1 Amp consumption range. A properly kitted out external 2.5" hard disk enclosure would have a twin head USB cable supplied for drawing power supply from two USB ports.

If you are using a twin head cable and the distro is a recent one then your USB hard disk should be seen by every Linux.

If you use a single head USB cable then the hard disk read/write operations are simply "unreliable". Sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't. This is not an operational problem.

Can you confirm what cable you were using?

Also the best detection is at the terminal using command in root

Code:

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fdisk -l

---

You're exactly right. It was a twin head. I was using 1. Never thought about the power requirements. Just thought it was strange that parted magic and gparted iso's wouldn't see it, but the knoppix one did. I did use the command line to find the disks also.

It's exactly as you said...sometimes it works using one lead, sometimes it doesn't.

In my case, it did. All is well in my world.

drsatch,

Thanks for the confirmation.

I just want to thank you for talking to us, like the children we are. Not all of us was born with this embedded in our brains. About 2 minutes ago I completed my first XP migration. Your instructions were simple and to the point. The only issue I had was that the code you gave , ( dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/sda bs=32256) had to be changed to (dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=32256) because thats the way terminal had designated it. Could you show a me a code, lets say , to single out one partition of a duel boot, with XP and linux, on a single drive. I think if I seen this it would better help me understand, this process . Thanks again AD johnson:cool:

AD Johnson,

The safest way to clone a MS system, especially Vista, is to mirror a complete hard disk.

Thereafter if you want to change the partition arrangement do it with the Parted Magic or Gparted Live CD. This way you start with a workable system first, test it and then start messing around with the partition table. For Vista it is best to use its own resizer function within the "disk management" program. Parted magic and Gparted are alright for Xp.

To clone a partition just use the device name of a partition. In Linux the first partition of disk sda is sda1, the 3rd partition of disk sdb is sdb3. Therefore is you want to clone sda1 as a source to sdb3 as a target the instruction is just

Code:

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dd if=/dev/sda1 of=/dev/sdb3 bs=32256

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You need to do extra work to change some system parameter if you migrate a MS system or any operating system to a partition with a number different from its original. That is why I recommend cloning the whole disk first and alter its partition table later. Also you need to make sdb3 exactly in size, in exactly the same number of cylinders, as sda1 in order to be error free.

In general cloning a partition without an operating system (data only) is recommended for the above. However you might find creating sdb3 first, format it and then copy the content of sda1 into it is easier as you can have sdb3 in any size you wish.

Cloning with dd has the advantage of copying the boot sector which is not touched by programs copying the filing system.

If you want to know how each partition is called in Linux use a root console command

Code:

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fdisk -l

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Lastly it was not my intention to make my readers feel like children. However the operation is very simple but the theory behind is quite complicated. My intention was to make aware of the principles behind. To migrate an operating system by any standard is a big deal so there is no harm in stating each step clearly.

I Thank you for your quick response. It has shed a lot of light on the subject. Right now I'm trying the ( tar ) method in migrating .elyssa mint 5 to an external hard drive,just to see how it works. Again I thank you, I hope I did not offend you with my children statement, But when I go to some forums, they talk as if everybody's been doing this all they're lives. Nice to listen to someone who talks to us in a way we understand. Thanks

First, this is a most helpful how-to. Much thanks to saikee and all who've contributed to this thread.

I've run into a temporary glitch trying to use this method and have a question:

Can the destination drive be booted from while still in the external enclosure and using a different interface (SATA vs. IDE) than the original drive? I can't seem to boot from the destination drive that I've copied the data to.

Here are the steps I've taken:

1) System: Dell Latitude D420, 60 GB IDE running XP Pro, external USB drive enclosure housing WD 74 GB SATA drive. Using Xubuntu livecd.

2) Fdisk output:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ab2316

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 7 56196 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 8 7294 58532827+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 74.3 GB, 74355769344 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9039 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x39d1cc9a

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

3) dd command and output:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=32256 conv=noerror
dd: reading `/dev/sda': Input/output error
14401+1 records in
14401+1 records out
464535552 bytes (465 MB) copied, 184.913 s, 2.5 MB/s

Displays i/o error three more times and continues processing.

I added the conv=noerror because the dd process would die upon hitting the error, where the noerror kept things moving.

I also found a useful way to monitor the dd progress at another site (forgot where, but I'll find/link-to it ASAP). In another terminal enter:

$ sudo watch -n30 -- pkill -USR1 ^dd$

The above will display the progress in the original terminal which the dd command was executed.

4) Last statement in dd progress:

60011581440 bytes (60 GB) copied, 6167.66 s, 9.7 MB/s

5) Fdisk output:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ab2316

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 7 56196 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 8 7294 58532827+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 74.3 GB, 74355769344 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9039 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x41ab2316

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 7 56196 de Dell Utility
/dev/sdb2 * 8 7294 58532827+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

Looks good, but when I try to reboot the laptop via the external enclosed drive, BIOS says: A disk read error occurred, ctrl alt del.

XP comp mgmnt says: e:\ is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted or unreadable.

Sorry if too much info. Any help or point in the right direction is appreciated.

--shortz