[gentoo-user] Re: Moving the system from one disk to another

[Kerin Millar <kerframil@gmail.com>]

On 04/04/2010 20:05, meino.cramer@gmx.de wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I have to move my whole system from one disk to another
> bigger one.
>
> I think of doing as follows:
> Boot a system via CD/DVD (knoppix for example).
> Mount small disk read-only
> Mount bigger disk read-write
>
> cd into mountpoint of the first one
> cp -a . ../<mountpoint_of_bigger_disk>
>
> Seems to me slow but correct? Or?

cp -a is fine although, in my experience, I've found that rsync is more 
reliable:

rsync -av /mnt/oldrootfs/. /mnt/newrootfs/.

Note that -a covers almost everything but you may need the following 
additional options depending on how your filesystem has been used:

-H = preserve hard link
-A = preserve ACLs
-X = preserve extended attributes (in in doubt, recommended)

Whichever way you go about it, ensure that no pseudo-filesystem or bind 
mounts are present within "/mnt/oldrootfs" at the time.

Cheers,

--Kerin