From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Nov 21 14:27: 5 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6ECC37B401 for ; Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:27:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from segfault.monkeys.com (segfault.monkeys.com [66.60.157.246]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 62AF243E9C for ; Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:27:02 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rfg@monkeys.com) Received: from monkeys.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by segfault.monkeys.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 06F462847C for ; Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:26:52 -0800 (PST) To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: disk-to-disk backup of root/bootable filesystem (?) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:26:51 -0800 Message-ID: <3001.1037917611@monkeys.com> From: "Ronald F. Guilmette" Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG I have an x86 system here that contains an 18GB SCSI drive and also a 20GB IDE drive. The 18GB SCSI drive contains a complete FreeBSD system that has been installed and then tailored to my personal preferences. It also contains a lot of my personal working files. The SCSI drive contains only a single defined BIOS partition. That BISO partition, in turn, has been sub-partitioned into one (1) FreeBSD root partition and also a smallish FreeBSD swap partition. I want to make a full, complete, and _bootable_ backup of everything that is on the SCSI drive onto the IDE drive. Ideally, I want to end up in a situation where I can remove the SCSI drive, and then boot from the IDE drive and then just carry on working as if nothing had happened. I prefer not to waste time copying empty disk space (e.g. using dd). Assuming that I am am able to make the necessary receiving partitions on the IDE drive, and assuming that I make suitable ufs file system on the IDE drive, and assuming that I then use `cpio -p' to copy all of the files from the one ufs filesystem on the SCSI drive to the (new) corresponding ufs partition on the IDE drive, what else will I need to do in order to make sure that I can then boot from the new (copy) partition on the IDE drive? I assume that I'll have to set up some sort of a MBR on the IDE drive. I would appreciate exact instructions for doing that. I also assume that I'll have to diddle the /etc/fstab file on the IDE drive, after copying files, so as to have it make reference to the IDE drive partitions, rather than to the original SCSI drive partitions. (I think that I can handle this part.) So anyway, what else might I need to do in order to make this work? P.S. The system in question has a reasonably modern Aware BIOS that allows me to specify whether the system should try to boot from SCSI or from IDE first. Of course, once I get all of the files over onto the IDE drive, I will toggle that from its current setting (SCSI) to its new setting (IDE). To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message