Cloning Linux from disk to disk?

[jaque]

I am trying to clone my linux hard drive to a larger drive. I am using Norton Ghost 6.0 for my method of cloning. After I have cloned the hard drive it seems to boot fine then after the Linux portion of SCSI detection I get the follow message:

VFS: Cannot open root device 08:08
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:08

I have been do some research into this and I see alot of others having the same problem, but no solutions.

I have also tried PQ Drive Image Pro and that was even worse.

Using RedHat 7.0

Any help on solving this problem would be great, or any suggestions of another way to cloning ext2 partions while still being bootable after cloning would also be a great help!

Thanks!

[jaque]

Would anyone please help me?

[FoBoT]

i don't know

but i do have a copy of drive image pro 6 sitting here

i am supposed to learn how it works

i have a copy of peanut linux (small)

i have some test boxen i can re-image

ok you talked me into getting off my chair and playing with it,

of course sounds like i am likely to run into problems

but if it "works" i will re-post

[jaque]

hey thanks! looking forward to your post!

[bdg1983]

First of all, show a little patience. This is a free service after all and we don't get paid a cent for helping others such as yourself.

VFS: Cannot open root device 08:08
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:08


Fix your /etc/lilo.conf to point to the correct boot partition and then rerun lilo.

[snivlle]

Hi there:

Well, because the ext2 file system is so dramatically different from fat, fat32, and ntfs, it's very unlikely that you'll be able to clone your Linux partition(s) without incident. I use PowerQuest's Drive Image Pro quite often ( I'm an A+ tech ) and it's simply marvelous for most disk cloning operations; however, even PowerQuest's support team will tell you that it's risky for a Linux system. the data will indeed move for you, but the Hard drive geometry gets thrown off kilter. Perhaps trying to repair, rather than re-install may work. I personally haven't had any luck in so trying. Something I would encourage you to do is to backup your configurations and personal data first. ie. to another drive, CDRW, etc.

[Bernd]

To prevent the time of installation for several computers I created a tarball with all files and directories (execept the proc directory) from the source pc (computer which has a full linux installation).
Then I booted the destination from CD (rescue CD created with the "timos rescue CD" program), copied the tar ball via network to the destination pc, untarred everything, made modifications for the network, created the /proc directory, copied lilo.conf to the current ramdisk /etc directory and run lilo.
Afterwards everything worked fine.
The same way should work for you too without the need of commercial programs.

You should only attention that creating tar files bigger than 2GB makes problems (as I know it is not possible). Furthermore we made the experience when we adviced tar to zip the tar ball, the tar file was created without any errors and it was smaller than 2GB. But tar had stopped at 2GB and zipped the files afterwards. So some files were missing.
I think it is better to add the directories manually and when the tar file becomes bigger than 1GB a new tar file should be created.

Furthermore we left out the /proc directory since adding it to the tar file gave some errors.

Bernd

[teeitup]

I use ghost to backup up linux partitions all the time.
I ghost to an image file and restore from there.
I've used 5.1c and 6.01
The only issue is it won't compress.
The image file turns out to as large as the original partition.

Good Luck,

[rppp01]

If you are going to only be upgrading your disk, then you don't need these tools. Linux can do it. It's been a long while since I have done this, so bear with me:

First, connect your new hard drive up as a slave.
Boot linux, format and partition the disk, and mount that drive under /tmp/newdrive, or whatever.
Then the magic. Go to /. Then type:

find . | cpio -pvdm /tmp/newdrive

This copies all the files under root to the new drive.

Now, make sure you have a boot diskette.

Bring the box down, and move the new disk in place as the master. Remove the old drive (but hang on to it in case you have issues).

Now, boot the floppy. It should find that disk and boot it. Once on the disk, you need to run lilo to add the MBR. You should be good to go.

Like I said, it's been awhile. But I do know that this is how some people keep using the same install, even through entire system upgrades (mobo, vid card, hdd, etc)

Good luck. Let me know how it goes.

[The Whizzard]

I assume that the original HDD was /dev/hda connected as primary master and the new HDD was either /dev/hdb primary slave, /dev/hdc secondary master, or /dev/hdd secondary slave. Make sure the new HDD is NOW /dev/hda primary master, this is where your bootloader(lilo or grub) is expexting it to be.