Post by thread:[OT] Disk imageing software

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'[OT] Disk imageing software'
2005\12\30@140318 by John Nall

I need to upgrade to a larger hard drive, and want to just write an image of the old drive to the new drive, so that I can thereafter just boot from the new one. (The old drive is just about to give up the ghost, I think, and I'll just keep it on the shelf as a backup drive. The idea is to shut the barn door _before _the horses are gone. :-) I've googled around, and there clearly are software packages to do this -- both free and for sale. Does anyone have any experience with doing this and, if so, what package would you recommend? The system runs both XP and Linux (dual boot) so software for either should be OK I would think.

2005\12\30@141940 by Mario Mendes Jr.

<snip> (The old drive is just about to give up the ghost, I think, and I'll just keep it on the shelf as a backup drive. The idea is to shut the barn door _before _the horses are gone. :-) <unsnip> While I do not have any recommendations for you, I am very intersted in finding out why you're going to use the old drive as a backup drive. The way I understood your post, your old/current drive is not reliable anymore so you're going to replace/upgrade it. Assuming that I understood you correctly, why on earth would you rely on it to be a backup drive? -Mario

2005\12\30@142835 by John Nall

Mario Mendes Jr. wrote: > > While I do not have any recommendations for you, I am very intersted in > finding out why you're going to use the old drive as a backup drive. The > way I understood your post, your old/current drive is not reliable anymore > so you're going to replace/upgrade it. Assuming that I understood you > correctly, why on earth would you rely on it to be a backup drive? > "Backup" only in the sense that it might serve in an emergency. It still works, but is several years old, doesn't have as much capacity as I would like, and has failed once. But it still works, and has all my software on it. Why in the world would I want to throw it away??? I just don't want it as my main drive, that's all. (The Dell Dimension 4300S only has room for one drive in the cabinet -- otherwise, I would just add a second drive).

2005\12\30@143207 by Harold Hallikainen

> <snip> > > (The old drive is just about to give up the ghost, I think, and I'll just > keep it on the shelf as a backup drive. The idea is to shut the barn door > _before _the horses are gone. :-) > > <unsnip> > > While I do not have any recommendations for you, I am very intersted in > finding out why you're going to use the old drive as a backup drive. The > way I understood your post, your old/current drive is not reliable anymore > so you're going to replace/upgrade it. Assuming that I understood you > correctly, why on earth would you rely on it to be a backup drive? > > I've used Norton Ghost to make drive images of both Windoze and Linux drives. Seems to work. I boot off a PC-DOS floppy with NG on it, then make the image to an external USB drive. Harold -- FCC Rules Updated Daily at http://www.hallikainen.com

2005\12\30@150103 by Rob Hamerling

John Nall wrote: > I need to upgrade to a larger hard drive, and want to just write an > image of the old drive to the new drive, so that I can thereafter just > boot from the new one. (The old drive is just about to give up the > ghost, I think, and I'll just keep it on the shelf as a backup drive. > The idea is to shut the barn door _before _the horses are gone. :-) > > I've googled around, and there clearly are software packages to do this > -- both free and for sale. Does anyone have any experience with doing > this and, if so, what package would you recommend? The system runs > both XP and Linux (dual boot) so software for either should be OK I > would think. I have good experience with DFSee: http://www.dfsee.com. It is multiplatform (DOS,Win,Linux,OS/2), and the downloadable version is full function. Nice feature is its scripting facility. Once I had broken-off a partition move with DFSee after which two bootable partitions were out of order. After sending in a disk analysis report (with DFSee on a bootable diskette or USB stick) I received a custom repair script within a few days and my system was back in business! Regards, Rob. -- Rob Hamerling, Vianen, NL phone +31-347-322822 homepage: http://www.robh.nl/

2005\12\30@150356 by Danny Sauer

John wrote regarding '[OT] Disk imageing software' on Fri, Dec 30 at 13:06: [...getting new hard drive, wants to migrate data to new drive...] Are you getting an identical drive, or replacing with a larger drive? Presumably larger - so are you wanting to resize any of the partitions, keep them the same, etc? If you're wanting to resize, which is presumably the case, you'll want to take note of what filesystems you're using. Presumably the XP partition(s) use NTFS - hopefully you're no a desktop without the "noresize" flag set, because it becomes pretty much a problem for partition magic if you're using a laptop (that "seems" to be the way XP decided to flag the partition - desktop or laptop). If Linux is using ext3, then ghost shoudl work alright for you - you can get the "cheap" version for about $50, and use it for backups as well as for this operation. Since you're fine with Linux, I'll tell you how I'd do it the "no cost" way. With both drives in the system, either boot Linux into single user mode - so syslogd, etc aren't running and changing things around on the disk - or even better boot from a rescue disk / installer disk. Make sure that you know which device is the old drive and which is the new one, and run dd if=/dev/olddrive of=/dev/newdrive bs=4096 where olddrive and newdrive are the actual drives (hda, sda, whatever is appropriate). That'll take a while - you may want to run "hdparm -i /dev/whatever" to see if DMA is enabled on the drives before running dd (run hdparm -d /dev/whatever to enable DMA). The dd command will get you an exact copy of the old drive. You'll then need to resize the partitions. If you have a rescue disk with qtparted (http://www.sysresccd.org/), or if you otherwise have that on your system, you can then use that program to move the partitions around on the new drive. That way, if something screws up on the new drive, you can pretty easily start over from the old one again. Or, of course, just buy a copy of Ghost - but know that Ghost won't work with filesystems like Reiserfs, XFS, JFS, etc - and I'm not sure that it works with ext3. I know that Ghost doesn't work well with grub, if you're using that bootloader. It may work better with NTFS, though. You could use the dd method followed by Partion Magic, as well, which might be the most reliable option for resizing the Windows stuff, followed by changing partition boundaries and using resize_reiserfs / ext2resize for the Linux side. BTW, do ask if you need more information - I'm possibly assuming a bit of knowledge on your part. :) --Danny

2005\12\30@153745 by Herbert Graf

On Fri, 2005-12-30 at 14:02 -0500, John Nall wrote: > I need to upgrade to a larger hard drive, and want to just write an > image of the old drive to the new drive, so that I can thereafter just > boot from the new one. (The old drive is just about to give up the > ghost, I think, and I'll just keep it on the shelf as a backup drive. > The idea is to shut the barn door _before _the horses are gone. :-) > > I've googled around, and there clearly are software packages to do this > -- both free and for sale. Does anyone have any experience with doing > this and, if so, what package would you recommend? The system runs > both XP and Linux (dual boot) so software for either should be OK I > would think. My experience has been limited to Norton Ghost. If you were using just Windows I would recommend it. However, since you mention Linux it makes it much harder for me to recommend it. Ghost is EXTREMELY sensitive to file system problems in Linux, it will chug and chug and then just give up, telling you to go back and run fsck. Running fsck will sometimes fix what's wrong, sometimes not. Assuming you do finally get ghost to image your Linux stuff properly it has no concept of a "boot loader" and ends up corrupting bootup. A linux rescue disk fixes that. It's taken me a long time and alot of work to find a flow that works with Linux partitions and Ghost, and so far things are OK. But given the headache I can't recommend it. Now, small disclaimer, I've used a few versions of Ghost, the latest I've used is about 2 years old. While it is far better then it's predecessors, it still has the problems I've described above. Perhaps the newest versions fix these problems, I'm not sure. TTYL ----------------------------- Herbert's PIC Stuff: http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

2005\12\30@154106 by w d myrick

Acronis True Image is very good it will make a copy of the disk you want to make an image of even if you boot from that disk. It is the best I have ever used.. Cost is about $30.00 US. Derwad ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Nall" <spam_OUTjwnallTakeThisOuTgmail.com> To: "Microcontroller discussion list - Public." <.....piclistKILLspam@spam@mit.edu> Sent: Friday, December 30, 2005 1:02 PM Subject: [OT] Disk imageing software <snip>

2005\12\30@194543 by Gerhard Fiedler

John Nall wrote: > (The Dell Dimension 4300S only has room for one drive in the cabinet -- > otherwise, I would just add a second drive). I've more than once had a drive lying on the floor of the case. Unless you move the case around a lot that's not really a problem... There's nothing that says that those drives have to live in a bay. They are mostly tame and behave well, even outside :) Gerhard

2005\12\30@195009 by Nate Duehr

w d myrick wrote: > Acronis True Image is very good it will make a copy of the disk you want to > make an image of even if you boot from that disk. > It is the best I have ever used.. Cost is about $30.00 US. Ditto that. Acronis wipes the floor with Norton Ghost. They have various products for imaging, etc... all work well and RIGHT the first time. Nate

2005\12\31@000309 by Anand Dhuru

I would vote for the DriveImage XML; bundle this with Bart's bootable CD, which has a plugin for XML, and I think you have a great disaster recovery tool. And, they are both free. Regards, Anand {Original Message removed}

2005\12\31@010041 by William Chops Westfield

On Dec 30, 2005, at 11:02 AM, John Nall wrote: > I need to upgrade to a larger hard drive, and want to just write > an image of the old drive to the new drive, so that I can > thereafter just boot from the new one. I haven't had any problems with Norton ghost, moving around various FAT32 windows partitions. It seems to have creeping featuritus, though; lots of differences between versions and not necessarily compatibility of the image files... I recently managed to resize a windows XP (NTFS) partition using a gentoo System Rescue CD, which is actually a linux system that boots from CD and doesn't touch disk unless you tell it to (so it works on pure non-linux hard drives, for instance.) That was a reasonably pleasant experience... It claims to include a "partition magic clone", as well as a "Ghost/Drive-image clone." http://www.sysresccd.org/ BillW

2005\12\31@054024 by Stef Mientki

Nate Duehr wrote: {Quote hidden}>w d myrick wrote: > > >>Acronis True Image is very good it will make a copy of the disk you want to >>make an image of even if you boot from that disk. >>It is the best I have ever used.. Cost is about $30.00 US. >> >> > >Ditto that. Acronis wipes the floor with Norton Ghost. > >They have various products for imaging, etc... all work well and RIGHT >the first time. > > > and it's free for a month, especially when creating a diskimage from one disk to a larger disk. Perfect ! Stef >Nate > >

'[OT] Disk imageing software'
2006\01\02@014635 by Morgan Olsson

Danny Sauer 21:03 2005-12-30: >The dd command will get you an exact copy of the old drive. You'll >then need to resize the partitions. If you have a rescue disk with >qtparted (http://www.sysresccd.org/), or if you otherwise have that on >your system, you can then use that program to move the partitions >around on the new drive. That way, if something screws up on the new >drive, you can pretty easily start over from the old one again. That CD is marvellous! :) I used it for changing to larger and faster drive on my laptop, while keeeping the filesystems intact. (It can also copy/restore MBR by the way). The CD can use ethernet LAN, and Samba to talk to MSWin shares, so I booted on it, connected LAN, and dd the disk data to *this* old MSWin computer, changed drive, booted on CD angain, and dd back the filesystem on the laptop. DONE. (Basically. There are also tricks to minimize the size of the data such as first defragmenting the filesystem and pach files at beginning, then shrink the partition. Or fill up unused space with a large file conatining zeroes som compression on the dd data is efficient. I do not remember the details.) As dd copies bit by bit regardless of file system compatibility is a non-issue, as long as the new drive is equal or larger then the original. There is a great manual with the CD. /Morgan -- Morgan Olsson, Kivik, Sweden

2006\01\02@174707 by Peter

> As dd copies bit by bit regardless of file system compatibility is a > non-issue, as long as the new drive is equal or larger then the > original. AND AS LONG AS ALL ACCESS IS LBA ONLY Peter

2006\01\15@082640 by John Nall

Stef Mientki, Nate Duehr and w d myrick (combined messages) wrote: >>> Acronis True Image is very good it will make a copy of the disk you want to >>> make an image of even if you boot from that disk. >>> It is the best I have ever used.. Cost is about $30.00 US. >>> >> Ditto that. Acronis wipes the floor with Norton Ghost. >> >> They have various products for imaging, etc... all work well and RIGHT >> the first time. >> > and it's free for a month, > especially when creating a diskimage from one disk to a larger disk. > Perfect ! > To recall the original problem, my harddisk is showing signs of wanting to fail, and I wanted to replace it with a new, bigger disk. The question was what might be the best way to clone the old one to the new one. Following the above advice, I used Acronis in the "automatic" cloning mode to copy the old disk to the new disk (the old disk is 40GB and the new disk is 120GB). The documentation said that the partition sizes would proportionally increase but that otherwise everything would be the same. When I ran it, it found some errors on the old disk, which I told it to ignore (what else could I do?) but claimed to have successfully completed the cloning. However, the new disk will not boot up. It just sits there, displaying the single word: "GRUB." (This is a dual-boot disk, with both Windows XP and Linux (FC4) on it, and of course Grub is the boot loader). So Acronis didn't do it for me. :-( This is not a gripe (although it may sound like it :-) Just reporting that Acronis didn't do the trick. My guess would be that it has to do with the errors reading the old disk. John

2006\01\15@091632 by Philip Pemberton

In message <43CA4D8E.5090307KILLspamcomcast.net> John Nall <.....jwnallKILLspam.....gmail.com> wrote: > However, the new disk will not boot up. It just sits there, displaying > the single word: "GRUB." (This is a dual-boot disk, with both Windows > XP and Linux (FC4) on it, and of course Grub is the boot loader). So > Acronis didn't do it for me. :-( Boot from a Linux rescue CD - the install CDs for most Linux distros can be used in some form of "rescue mode". I'm pretty sure Fedora can do it, but I'm not sure how. What you want to do is get to some form of command prompt and mount your Linux partition. Mounting it is easy enough: mkdir /mnt/oldlin mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/oldlin chroot /mnt/oldlin Now you're sitting at a root shell from the perspective of your preinstalled Linux system. Chroot is in effect making the kernel tack "/mnt/oldlin" on to every path that gets accessed. The shell thinks you're accessing /, but in effect you're accessing your own local system. Now type: /sbin/grub-install /dev/hda That'll reinstall GRUB into the MBR of the primary master hard drive and should fix the references to the disc partition that stores the GRUB config file and second-stage loader. Hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, eject the CD, then see if GRUB starts up (it should). I've done this with LILO a few times, but the same concept should apply to GRUB. -- Phil. | Acorn RiscPC600 SA220 64MB+6GB 100baseT EraseMEphilpemspam_OUTTakeThisOuTdsl.pipex.com | Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxe R2 512MB+100GB http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Panasonic CF-25 Mk.2 Toughbook ... Can I blame my spelling on Line Noise?

2006\01\15@105844 by Wayne Topa

part 1 2337 bytes content-type:text/plain; charset=us-asciiJohn Nall(jwnallspam_OUTgmail.com) is reported to have said: {Quote hidden}> Stef Mientki, Nate Duehr and w d myrick (combined messages) wrote: > >>> Acronis True Image is very good it will make a copy of the disk you want to > >>> make an image of even if you boot from that disk. > >>> It is the best I have ever used.. Cost is about $30.00 US. > >>> > >> Ditto that. Acronis wipes the floor with Norton Ghost. > >> > >> They have various products for imaging, etc... all work well and RIGHT > >> the first time. > >> > > and it's free for a month, > > especially when creating a diskimage from one disk to a larger disk. > > Perfect ! > > > > To recall the original problem, my harddisk is showing signs of wanting > to fail, and I wanted to replace it with a new, bigger disk. The > question was what might be the best way to clone the old one to the new > one. Following the above advice, I used Acronis in the "automatic" > cloning mode to copy the old disk to the new disk (the old disk is 40GB > and the new disk is 120GB). The documentation said that the partition > sizes would proportionally increase but that otherwise everything would > be the same. When I ran it, it found some errors on the old disk, which > I told it to ignore (what else could I do?) but claimed to have > successfully completed the cloning. > > However, the new disk will not boot up. It just sits there, displaying > the single word: "GRUB." (This is a dual-boot disk, with both Windows > XP and Linux (FC4) on it, and of course Grub is the boot loader). So > Acronis didn't do it for me. :-( > > This is not a gripe (although it may sound like it :-) Just reporting > that Acronis didn't do the trick. My guess would be that it has to do > with the errors reading the old disk. John I wrote this a long time ago but used it quite a bit during my early Linux tests. Hope it might be useful. Wayne -- Information Center, n.: A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is to tell you why you cannot have the information you require. _______________________________________________________ part 2 2552 bytes content-type:text/plain; charset=us-ascii #!/bin/sh # Script to transfer filesystems from one Hard Drive to another # Written by Wayne Topa (wtopa <@spam@huntbrittanyKILLspamintergate.com>) # GPL software - If you can use it - do. # some subroutines confirm() { echo -e "OK? \c" while true do read x case "$x" in y | yes | Y | Yes | YES ) return 0;; n | no | N | No | NO ) echo echo "Cancelled" return 1;; *) echo "Please enter yes or no" ;; esac done } # Program Start # Check for existance of /mnt - exit w/msg if not # Unmount /mnt (in case it is mounted) # Ask for filesystem to transfer # Ask for drive partition to transfer to # Get another dir, if required # Make sure data was entered correctly # Make ext2 filesystem on DEST (if OK) # mount drive partition to /mnt # cd to filesystem to and tar(copy) to destination # Compare original filesystem to transfered filesystem # unmount /mnt if [ ! -e /mnt ]; then echo ; echo echo " Transfer requires that you have a /mnt directory " echo " please create one and try again." exit 1 else echo " Unmounting /mnt" umount /mnt fi echo echo -n "Which directory to transfer FROM: (ie /usr): " read DIR echo echo -n "Partition to transfer TO: (ie /dev/hdb2) : " read DEST echo echo "NOTE: this applies ONLY to multiple partition filesystems." echo "If you are transfering to a specific dir on $DEST" echo "( ie /etc on / partition) enter it here ( ie /etc )." echo "If that dir doesn't exist, it will be created" echo "Enter ret if none" read DESTDIR echo echo "About to create an ext2 filesystem on $DEST" if confirm ; then echo "Creating ext2 file system on $DEST" mke2fs -c $DEST fi echo echo "About to COPY $DIR to $DEST mounted on /mnt$DESTDIR" if confirm ; then echo "Mounting $DEST on /mnt" mount $DEST /mnt if [ ! -e /mnt$DESTDIR ] ; then mkdir /mnt/$DESTDIR fi ( cd $DIR ; tar clf - . ) | ( cd /mnt$DESTDIR ; tar xvpBf - ) echo echo "About to diff-r $DIR & $DEST$DESTDIR" if confirm ; then echo " Wait - Comparing $DIR to $DEST$DESTDIR with diff -r " diff -r $DIR /mnt$DESTDIR | less fi echo ; echo "Here is $DIR" ls $DIR echo echo ; echo "Here is $DEST$DESTDIR" ls /mnt$DESTDIR echo echo unmounting /mnt umount /mnt fi exit 0 part 3 35 bytes content-type:text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (decoded 7bit)

2006\01\15@110537 by Stef Mientki

>This is not a gripe (although it may sound like it :-) Just reporting >that Acronis didn't do the trick. My guess would be that it has to do >with the errors reading the old disk. > >John > > Sorry, I cann't help you with your problem. But for the record, I've now found a freeware program "DriveImage XML", that works (as far as I tried) equally well. succes with solving the problems, Stef

2006\01\15@124933 by John Nall

Phillip Pemberton wrote: > > Boot from a Linux rescue CD - the install CDs for most Linux distros can be > used in some form of "rescue mode". I'm pretty sure Fedora can do it, but I'm > not sure how. . You were pretty much on target, although the exact sequence that you wrote didn't work for me. But it did give me enough information to fix things, and I am grateful for your advice. Just FYI, here is the sequence for the Fedora 4 distro: (a) Download FC4 rescue disk (it is normally right there with the other FC4 ISO's) (b) Boot the FC4 rescue disk, and go through the steps to mount your FC4 partition (easy to follow directions) (c) Then type the following: chroot /mnt/sysimage grub-install /dev/hda (d) Reboot the system and everything is cool! Great! Sure gives one a panicky feeling when suddenly nothing works! But it is almost worth it for the good, exhilarating feeling you get when you fix things! :-) Regards, John

2006\01\15@132445 by John Nall

John Nall wrote: > You were pretty much on target, although the exact sequence that you > wrote didn't work for me. But it did give me enough information to fix > things, and I am grateful for your advice. Just to clarify, BTW, the Acronis cloning operation apparently somehow got the MBR messed up. Probably because of the ignored disk errors. So nothing would boot. I used the Windows XP installation disk, in rescue mode, to fix the MBR (using the command FIXMBR) but then it would only boot Windows. After that, used the FC4 rescue disk with Grub to make it capable of booting either Windows or Linux, as it did before all this started. What I did was to repair all the damage I apparently caused. :-) Or, as Pogo so nicely phrased it: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." John

2006\01\15@144823 by Herbert Graf

On Sun, 2006-01-15 at 08:26 -0500, John Nall wrote: > However, the new disk will not boot up. It just sits there, displaying > the single word: "GRUB." (This is a dual-boot disk, with both Windows > XP and Linux (FC4) on it, and of course Grub is the boot loader). So > Acronis didn't do it for me. :-( > > This is not a gripe (although it may sound like it :-) Just reporting > that Acronis didn't do the trick. My guess would be that it has to do > with the errors reading the old disk. This is a common problem, the clone went fine. The problem (and Ghost does the same thing) is that while the clone happens the boot manager isn't copied over correctly. This results in the "GRUB" you see. Best solution? Boot from the disk 1 of the Linux distro you have in rescue mode and simply restore your boot loader. For grub it's something like this, at the command line: grub root (hd0, 0) setup (hd0) quit exit This will restore your boot loader and restart the system. Note the root and setup lines might differ (I'm going from memory) but grub has a rudimentary help system that should guide you without problems. TTYL ----------------------------- Herbert's PIC Stuff: http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

2006\01\15@150618 by John Nall

Herbert Graf wrote: > > This is a common problem, the clone went fine. > > The problem (and Ghost does the same thing) is that while the clone > happens the boot manager isn't copied over correctly. This results in > the "GRUB" you see. > . Well, as you have probably read by now, I have the problem cleared up. It is nice to know that the clone went OK, however, as I was worried whether or not there might be other problems that I have yet to encounter. So apparently there was just that one glitch. Just as a side comment, however, it seems to me that if Disk B is not _exactly _the same as Disk A after the clone operation has completed -- that the boot manager isn't copied over correctly -- then the clone did not go fine. I thought the definition of "clone" meant that they were equal in every respect?

2006\01\15@155220 by Herbert Graf

On Sun, 2006-01-15 at 15:06 -0500, John Nall wrote: > Herbert Graf wrote: > > > This is a common problem, the clone went fine. > > > > The problem (and Ghost does the same thing) is that while the clone > > happens the boot manager isn't copied over correctly. This results in > > the "GRUB" you see. > > > . > Well, as you have probably read by now, I have the problem cleared up. > It is nice to know that the clone went OK, however, as I was worried > whether or not there might be other problems that I have yet to > encounter. So apparently there was just that one glitch. > > Just as a side comment, however, it seems to me that if Disk B is not > _exactly _the same as Disk A after the clone operation has completed -- > that the boot manager isn't copied over correctly -- then the clone did > not go fine. I thought the definition of "clone" meant that they were > equal in every respect? You have to be careful of the definition of "clone". If you make a bit-to-bit copy of a Linux drive, and the drive geometry isn't identical, the clone CAN be identical, but you still won't be able to boot. The reason is you DON'T want an exact copy. You want a program that will make an exact copy of all your data, but at the same time be able to "interpret" the "nitty gritty" and modify it accordingly. Examples are the partition table (same partition + different drive geometry = garbage), and the boot sector. Ghost and programs like that "interpret" the partition table and the boot loaders used for windows/dos correctly, but for Linux they simply crap out. It's a shame, and VERY frustrating when you don't understand what's going on, but that's just the way it is. Blame the software makers for not supporting Linux properly, but at least Linux gives you the tools to fix the problem yourself. TTYL ----------------------------- Herbert's PIC Stuff: http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

2006\01\15@171245 by Philip Pemberton

In message <KILLspam43CA8B29.7070201KILLspamgmail.com> John Nall <RemoveMEjwnallTakeThisOuTgmail.com> wrote: > Just FYI, here is the sequence for the Fedora 4 distro: > > (a) Download FC4 rescue disk (it is normally right there with the other > FC4 ISO's) > (b) Boot the FC4 rescue disk, and go through the steps to mount your > FC4 partition (easy to follow directions) > (c) Then type the following: > chroot /mnt/sysimage > grub-install /dev/hda > (d) Reboot the system and everything is cool! I thought it would be something like that. I based my message on my experiences with the Slackware install CDs - I'm using Fedora on my desktops, but I've never had to boot using the Rescue part of the install CD. My network server, OTOH, is running Slackware 10.1 and has been booted from CD in rescue mode at least three times - once after hosing LILO, once after hosing the ReiserFS root partition (reiserfsck --rebuild-tables in single-user mode fixed that) and again after making the machine unbootable during a botched kernel upgrade... The saying's true - Linux isn't unfriendly, it's just very picky about who it considers to be a friend :) > Great! Sure gives one a panicky feeling when suddenly nothing works! > But it is almost worth it for the good, exhilarating feeling you get > when you fix things! :-) Isn't it just :) -- Phil. | Acorn RiscPC600 SA220 64MB+6GB 100baseT spamBeGonephilpemspamBeGonedsl.pipex.com | Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxe R2 512MB+100GB http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | Panasonic CF-25 Mk.2 Toughbook ... Not a computer nerd; merely a techno-weenie.

2006\01\17@024108 by Nate Duehr

Herbert Graf wrote: > If you make a bit-to-bit copy of a Linux drive, and the drive geometry > isn't identical, the clone CAN be identical, but you still won't be able > to boot. > > The reason is you DON'T want an exact copy. You want a program that will > make an exact copy of all your data, but at the same time be able to > "interpret" the "nitty gritty" and modify it accordingly. Examples are > the partition table (same partition + different drive geometry = > garbage), and the boot sector. Haven't been around to chime in on this yet, but... I think when you see "GRUB" and nothing else, what really happened is that the MBR copied perfectly. The MBR holds a small first-stage bootloader and a vector (address) pointing to the 2nd stage. And on a new disk, that address is flat-out wrong after a bit-for-bit copy unless both disks were using LBA and the sector just happened to come out in exactly the same place... that or the original disk and the new disk were identical clones, including disk type, manufacturer (probably) and geometry. Everything's an LBA device pretty much these days, but bootloaders don't like all that "relative" stuff. They need to know exactly where to jump to until they can get enough code/brains loaded to follow things like filesystems. LILO was worse than GRUB in that you couldn't change the configuration without completely re-writing the bootloader to disk... forgetting to run /sbin/lilo after installing a new kernel was a common mistake... GRUB can at least load up enough intelligence to look inside /boot by way of a pointer directly to a device name... > Ghost and programs like that "interpret" the partition table and the > boot loaders used for windows/dos correctly, but for Linux they simply > crap out. It's a shame, and VERY frustrating when you don't understand > what's going on, but that's just the way it is. Yes, frustrating, but easily fixable. > Blame the software makers for not supporting Linux properly, but at > least Linux gives you the tools to fix the problem yourself. Yep. Re-running grub-install goes out and rebuilds the 1st and 2nd stage bootloaders and checks the mountpoint used for GRUB's /boot/grub directory for the various files needed for the 2nd stage, including menu.1st, where the menu structure lives. GRUB also has a command-line built into the 1st stage... I think that's what the original poster was seeing. You can actually (if you know GRUB command syntax) still boot the box manually from there, if you know where your 2nd stage wandered off to... Nate

2006\01\17@062051 by Gerhard Fiedler

Nate Duehr wrote: >> Blame the software makers for not supporting Linux properly, but at >> least Linux gives you the tools to fix the problem yourself. > > Yep. Hm... or blame the user who uses a Windows app (or app with Windows support) on disk with a Linux bootloader? Wouldn't have happened with a decent Linux cloning app, I suppose. And I wouldn't expect a Linux cloning app to necessarily clone Windows dynamic disks properly. (In both cases of course unless it's specifically mentioned as supported.) Gerhard

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