From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 23 10:22:32 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: FreeBSD-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 000E0106564A for ; Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:22:31 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from sonicy@otenet.gr) Received: from aiolos.otenet.gr (aiolos.otenet.gr [83.235.67.30]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 626898FC17 for ; Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:22:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pulstar.local (athedsl-4362543.home.otenet.gr [79.130.1.31]) by aiolos.otenet.gr (8.13.8/8.13.8/Debian-3) with ESMTP id o5NAMPFI004541; Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:22:28 +0300 Message-ID: <4C21E061.6080506@otenet.gr> Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 13:22:25 +0300 From: Manolis Kiagias User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.1.10) Gecko/20100512 Thunderbird/3.0.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Al Plant References: <4C217702.8080705@hdk5.net> In-Reply-To: <4C217702.8080705@hdk5.net> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.0.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Cc: FreeBSD-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Copy a FreeBSD 8* install to larger HD X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 10:22:32 -0000 On 23/06/2010 5:52 π.μ., Al Plant wrote: > Aloha, > > I am looking for the easiest way to copy a fresh working FreeBSD 8* HD > install (Manolis version) to a bigger HD that I found. > > I plan to have the new HD in the same box for doing this copy. > > Can I use sysinstall to make the new default slices on the big HD and > then move the OS and directories/files to them? > > What command (utility) do I use? dd or cp or some other to copy the > files. > > Thanks.... > > Hey Al! Back to your FreeBSD adventures, heh ;) You can certainly use sysinstall to create the slice. I suggest you use the command line bsdlabel to create the partitions. On your current system, use dump/restore to dump /, /var and /usr to the new disk directly (or you can save the dumps to some external disk and use it via fixit if you don't wish to mount both drives on the same machine). It would be best to run dump/restore in single user mode, without mounting /usr and /var, or at least with the minimum number of processes running. If you do run on a live filesystem, use the -L flag in dump (I've had some problems with this on large filesystems). Email me if you need more detailed instructions, I am currently investigating this method as a quick installation system for my custom FreeBSD systems.