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Date:      Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:38:57 -0500
From:      David Kelly <dkelly@hiwaay.net>
To:        D?nielisz L?szl? <laszlo_danielisz@yahoo.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: migrate system disk
Message-ID:  <20100922203857.GA92655@Grumpy.DynDNS.org>
In-Reply-To: <447149.36059.qm@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References:  <447149.36059.qm@web30808.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

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On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 08:06:13AM -0700, D?nielisz L?szl? wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have an old HDD which should be replaced soon, actually that HDD
> stands as my system disk, what is your suggesion, how should I migrate
> the FreeBSD 8.1 from the old disk to the new one?

If you must copy exactly what you currently have then I'd use a
variation on the handbook method which has already been suggested at
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/backup-basics.html

Rather than example 18-1 or 18-2 I'd pipe dump directly into restore. Do
this once for every filesystem. Something like:

( cd /; /sbin/dump -0uanf - / ) | ( cd /newmount; /sbin/restore -rf - )

Where /newmount is the temporary new mount point for your new drive.
Left preparation of new disk as an exercise for the reader.


However there is a good argument to be made for making a totally new
installation of FreeBSD. Then go through the original disk picking up
the necessary files to customize for your use. As you find these files
put their names in a file named something like files.list that in the
future one could "tar -T files.list" (thats an incomplete example) to do
a minimal quick backup or restore of only the files which are unique to
your machine. This is an opportunity to find these files, and to
practice using tar -T to lift them from one drive and write them to
another.

I wouldn't try to move the ports collection with the above technique.
However it would be a good idea to save a list of installed ports that
one could use to reinstall.

-- 
David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@HiWAAY.net
========================================================================
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.



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