Add Hard Drive

[DR1947]

I am running a dual boot W2k and Redhat 7.3 Since some users insist on windoze. I dual boot with one partitioned drive. I have another drive I want to add. Move all the Linux stuff to the new drive. Repartion the original drive for windoze to use. LiLo is using the MBR to boot. There are two windoze partitions. Windoze calls them C: and D: I would like to use the unneeded Linux area to increase the size of the D: partition on the original drive.

The Add New Hard Drive help file written by shaggy112 seems to have lots of places to mess up the entire process. Is that the best method?

I want make sure I still have Internet access Linksys route and DSL modem.

I guess if all else fail I start over from scratch. Something I want to avoid.

Thank for any help
DR1947

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

If you need to transfer all of the Linux system to a new drive, you might be better suited by just reinstalling.

Just back up all of your user data and files to CD or something, and then install Linux to the new drive. Then, simply restore your files.

The reason I suggest this is because of the way Linux handles filesystem mounting. If a partition isn't where it expects to be (ie, /dev/hda3 is actually at /dev/hdb3), then there will be problems.

[dalek]

I just moved my stuff over to a new hard drive. It will work but you must have the same sequence on the partitions and such or you will have a nightmare with lilo or grub and fstab.

It can be done but I did it because of Gentoo. I didn't want to download all that software on this 24K connection again.

Do you need details or what? Basically how new are you to Linux?

Later

:D :D :D :D

[rdeschene2]

Going back over old notes, I've done something similar using the command below, after booting from a floppy. I booted from a floppy so that the /source and /destination hard drives did not have any activity on them, other than this file copying.

cp -adR /source /destination

You will definitely have to review the /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf settings to make sure they are correct for your NEW installation.

Definitely run the new installation through its paces, and make sure you have the means of booting it before you wipe our the old RedHat partition. Definitely have a backup of your /home directory at a minimum, and a rescue floppy or CD available.

vi lilo.conf (modify setting if necessary)
lilo -t (to test a new settings)
lilo (save changes)

[dalek]

I used my Gentoo CD and the command cp -rpv. That seemed to work well. Well, it is working at the moment. I had no problems with booting or the bootloader, once I figured out how to get the darn thing installed. Emerge grub seemed to help some. :rolleyes:

Later

:D :D :D

[DR1947]

I want to thany all of you for your replies. I have not attempted to do it yet. I am thinking tomorrow. I will let you know.

[frimann]

why not just install the new hd then install linux on it and then copy your files and data over from your old linux and then wipe it out and merge with windows with something like partision magic.
im a bit of a newbee meself so enybody feel free to corect me if this will bee trobulesome.

[dalek]

I don't use windoze but the way I gave will work for Linux. It may or may not work for windoze. Like I said, I don't have windoze. Never had to do it before.

At worst you may have to install windoze and then just copy over Linux.

Later

:D :D :D :D