Re: [gentoo-user] Moving root filesystem to a new partition

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Francisco Ares wrote:
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com 
> <mailto:rdalek1967@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Alan E. Davis wrote:
>
>         Can someone tell me what steps are necessary to move the /
>         filesystem to a new partition?  I recall someone helping me
>         with this before, but cannot find the email.  The oldest of
>         three drives on my system had my / partition, /dev/sdc1.  One
>         day recently, that partition became inaccessable.  After
>         quickly installing Ubuntu on a different drive, that root
>         partition eventually showed up again.
>         So I've been able to boot Gentoo again off the separate /boot
>         partition on /dev/sda1.  I need to move that / partition.  I
>         have several other partitions mounted off this one, mainly as
>         /usr and maybe /usr/local/, and some storage partitions
>         mounted to my home directory.
>         I copied the root (/) partition with the new partition at
>         /dev/sdb5 mounted as /newroot, using
>            # cp -ax / /newroot
>
>         I checked that /proc, /dev, and /sys are there, and empty.  I
>         recall there are some other steps necessary.  I changed
>         /etc/fstab, and the grub2 grub.cfg from ubuntu, the entry for
>         this kernel.  The boot stalls at a certain point.  
>         May I ask what steps are necessary to do this?
>
>         Thank you,
>
>         Alan Davis
>
>
>     I have done this in the past.  I usually boot the CD, make mount
>     points for old and new, then mount the old and new that I want to
>     copy.  Then I do a cp -av /path/to/old /path/to/new/ and let it
>     copy.  This can take quite a bit of time tho.  It seems those
>     little bitty files take the longest.  Maybe omitting the -v option
>     would help on that?
>
>     Once you get it copied over, edit your fstab file as needed on the
>     new side and install the bootloader as well.  After that, it
>     usually just works.
>
>     Dale
>
>     :-)  :-)
>     P. S.  Sorry for not including some fancy tarball stuff.  ;-)
>
>
>
> Well, as far as I know one would like to edit the bootloader 
> configuration as well, so as to reflect the new root directory.
>
> Or has anyone written this before and I didn't notice? ;-)
>
> Francisco
>
> -- 
> "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then 
> you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and 
> I have one idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have 
> two ideas." - George Bernard Shaw

If it needs to be then sure.  I usually move things file wise with cp 
then move things physically in the case as well.  My OS is always on 
hda.  The grub config is on hda1 and grub bootloader is on the MBR of 
hda as well.  So, I don't have to edit grub on mine.  I do boot once by 
using the edit feature of grub, just to make sure before I move things 
physically.

You do have to plan these things tho.  Wouldn't hurt to write down on 
paper where everything is and don't erase anything until you are sure 
your ducks are in a row.  Maybe even write notes on the drive with a 
post it note. 

Dale

:-)  :-)