[mdlug] Flakey hard drive

[R. Kannan]

But I cannot use plain old 'cp' to copy partition boot record. Can I? So it looks like I need to use 'dd'.

But will there be an issue with using dd on partitions that are different in size as long as the destination partition is bigger than the source partition? For example, if I use

dd if=/dev/hdb17 of /dev/hda10 bs=4096

will it create a problem if hdb17 is smaller than hda10?

Thanks

-----Original Message-----
>From: Brian Hurley <brian at detroitindustrial.org>
>Sent: Aug 18, 2007 5:27 PM
>To: mdlug at mdlug.org, "R. Kannan" <rkannan at peoplepc.com>
>Subject: Re: [mdlug] Flakey hard drive
>
>cp -a will not follow links and will preserve ownship and timestamps.
>
>On Saturday 18 August 2007, R. Kannan wrote:
>> I realized 'cp' in step #4 is a bad idea as it normally follows links. Can
>> I tar up all the files to the new partition and untar instead?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>
>> >From: "R. Kannan" <rkannan at peoplepc.com>
>> >Sent: Aug 18, 2007 4:49 PM
>> >To: MDLUG's Main discussion list <mdlug at mdlug.org>
>> >Subject: Re: [mdlug] Flakey hard drive
>> >
>> >All,
>> >
>> >The drive was readable and so I decided to copy the contents to a new
>> > drive (of larger capacity) and start booting from the new drive. This is
>> > what I did so far (after booting up in knoppix)
>> >
>> >1) Install hardware making the new hard drive master (hda) and the old
>> > drive slave (hdb) 2) Create Windows and Linux partitions on the new drive
>> > (hda) similar to those on old (hdb) 3) Make 'Windows-C' and /boot
>> > partitions bootable
>> >
>> >This is what I plan to do (after booting up in knoppix)
>> >
>> >4) Copy contents from the partitions in hdb to those in hda. Can I just
>> > use a 'cp' command to do this or is it faster with 'dd'? Should I do fsck
>> > on the old partitions before I mount/copy? 5) Edit the /etc/fstab file in
>> > hda '/' partition to reflect the new partition locations 6) Edit
>> > '/boot/grub/menu.lst' in hda '/boot' partition to reflect new locations
>> > of bootable partitions 7) Install grub on MBR of hda and reboot (See Carl
>> > T Miller's note earlier this month to the list).
>> >
>> >Is there anything else I need to be doing or be careful about?
>> >
>> >Thanks in advance for your help.
>> >
>> >
>> >-----Original Message-----
>> >
>> >>From: "R. Kannan" <rkannan at peoplepc.com>
>> >>Sent: Aug 7, 2007 9:38 AM
>> >>To: MDLUG's Main discussion list <mdlug at mdlug.org>
>> >>Subject: Re: [mdlug] Flakey had drive
>> >>
>> >>Thanks for all those who replied (and thanks Rich for fixing the mail
>> >> server and open up the floodgates). I will try some of the suggestions
>> >> this week and report back.
>> >>
>> >>-----Original Message-----
>> >>
>> >>>From: "Carl T. Miller" <millerc at cantonpl.org>
>> >>>Sent: Aug 7, 2007 9:02 AM
>> >>>To: MDLUG's Main discussion list <mdlug at mdlug.org>
>> >>>Subject: Re: [mdlug] Flakey had drive
>> >>>
>> >>>R. Kannan wrote:
>> >>>> The hard drive on my desktop has become flakey. Sometimes, it boots
>> >>>> fine but fails to access data. When I booted on knoppix CD, noppix
>> >>>> recognized the partitions and set up the fstab file correctly but I
>> >>>> could not mount the partitions.the 'mount' command just hung in there.
>> >>>> I tried 'cfdisk' but it couldnot find the hard disk.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Is there a way to try and do a fail-safe access just to get at the
>> >>>> data (disable dma etc.)? Any advice is appreciated.
>> >>>
>> >>>I'm not sure what I would do in this situation.  Normally if
>> >>>a hard drive is getting flakey, I'll boot from a Knoppix CD
>> >>>and use dd to make a copy of each partition of the drive.
>> >>>You can then safely experiment with the copies.
>> >>>
>> >>>You may want to run gpart (it's on the Knoppix cd) to see
>> >>>if the guessed partition table matches the partitions found
>> >>>at boot time.  If they don't match, I'd back up the current
>> >>>MBR (not to the same hard drive!), write the new values with
>> >>>gpart and reboot.  It's possible that will fix everything.
>> >>>If not, you can write the old MBR back and it will be just
>> >>>like you found it.
>> >>>
>> >>>c
>> >>>
>> >>>
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>
>
>
>-- 
>Brian Hurley
>Detroit Industrial Underground
>www.detroitindustrial.org
>
>Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out 
>the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.
>--Frederick Douglass


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